The Woman in Black
(originally published on August 28, 2012)
In recent years, horror movies come in only two varieties
that are known for their MPAA ratings: the PG-13 thriller with lots of sudden
jolts and no violence, and the R-rated gorefest with wall-to-wall blood and
innards. The Woman in Black is one of the former, the type I
personally prefer. The "jump movie," as I call it, is typically
more fully-realized, more focused on characters than violence. For example,
this film centers entirely around a character played by Daniel Radcliffe, his
first screen performance after being Harry Potter for all those years.
He is a lawyer who has been assigned the project of cleaning
up the documents in the extremely isolated house of a deceased widow.
Immediately upon arrival in the town outside of the area where the empty manor
towers, the villagers take no time in showing their disdain for the young man.
A legend says that the ghost of the dead woman kills a child in the town
everytime it is seen, and Radcliffe sees it several times.
The movie alternates between daytime and nighttime. The scenes in the day are filled with silly dialogue attempting to reinforce the "plot" that we all know only exists for the purposes of the night sequences, which are wholly terrifying. I do commend the movie, though, for at least trying to set up a scenario that would allow us to care about what happens to the lawyer, even if it mostly too forced. The movie is generally a treat to watch. It is an all-out period film, with the enormous home decorated in rotting grandeur, reminding viewers of all those similarly cramped horror classics of the past.
The movie alternates between daytime and nighttime. The scenes in the day are filled with silly dialogue attempting to reinforce the "plot" that we all know only exists for the purposes of the night sequences, which are wholly terrifying. I do commend the movie, though, for at least trying to set up a scenario that would allow us to care about what happens to the lawyer, even if it mostly too forced. The movie is generally a treat to watch. It is an all-out period film, with the enormous home decorated in rotting grandeur, reminding viewers of all those similarly cramped horror classics of the past.
The house is a perfect place for a ghost story, full of
countless opportunities for all the spooky shenanigans the movie is all too
pleased to deliver. This is the sort of movie that is most at home at tween
slumber parties where being scared is meant to be fun. The whole movie is
nostlagic in this way, not just for being closer to a type of movie lately
forgotten, but also for invoking that innocent feeling of curiosity for terror.
The film's best moments are the silent bits of building tension before the big
scare. It's all very typical, but effective.
I hope this style of film-making sticks around. I much prefer these atmospheric thrillers to the mindless bloodbaths that "mature" audiences are supposed to enjoy. This movie, by leaving all the violence out of the equation, is truly appropriate for anyone who understands the benefit of a good "Gotcha!" moment. That is how The Woman in Black has real value. I can only assume the visual version does justice to the book by Susan Hill upon which it was based. How does that work anyway? I just can't imagine a lengthy description of how Arthur Kipps looked out of the window because he thought he saw something, only for the sinister spectre to suddenly appear behind him and disappear when he turned around being all that scary.
7/10
I hope this style of film-making sticks around. I much prefer these atmospheric thrillers to the mindless bloodbaths that "mature" audiences are supposed to enjoy. This movie, by leaving all the violence out of the equation, is truly appropriate for anyone who understands the benefit of a good "Gotcha!" moment. That is how The Woman in Black has real value. I can only assume the visual version does justice to the book by Susan Hill upon which it was based. How does that work anyway? I just can't imagine a lengthy description of how Arthur Kipps looked out of the window because he thought he saw something, only for the sinister spectre to suddenly appear behind him and disappear when he turned around being all that scary.
7/10
I have often wondered what part of the human brain enjoys
being scared. Such a mechanism must exist, as evidenced by all the teenagers
who always show up to screenings of horror movies, gasping and shrieking
throughout, proclaiming afterwards that they will never sleep again. I think it
has something to do with a cheap, carnival-esque thrill factor. Ghost movies
are like those old-fashioned haunted house attractions. You know what’s going
to happen and you know it’s all quite fake, but you jump anyway and laugh about
it afterwards. This is the kind of old-fashioned appeal James Wan’s new movie The Conjuring possesses.
It concerns a family who moves into a secluded house (of
course), wherein also resides the evil spirit of a former witch (of course).
Only slightly strange things happen at first. All the clocks stop at 3:07 AM
and a young girl may or may not see something or someone in the shadows behind
her bedroom door. When things start getting more violent, a demonologist (Yes,
that is a thing.) husband wife team played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga
show up to work their magic.
I am glad James Wan has given up the guts and gore practices
of the Saw franchise he created, in
favor of more atmospheric work like this and his last movie Insidious. Like that flick, most of the
scares derive from everyday objects and locations. Creepy dolls are always good
for a shiver or two (see The Twilight
Zone) and mirrors are used very effectively here. That’s one thing that
always used to scare me when I was younger: the idea that something other than
myself would appear in the reflection.
Wan directs with masterful suspense, at least as far as “in
the moment” scares are concerned. He makes up for the lack of long-lasting
scares by presenting what he has with the utmost sincerity. Any movie
containing an exorcism scene must inevitably be compared to that masterpiece The Exorcist, but few movies have the
same kind of cold realism. However, I can’t help but scoff at The Conjuring’s insistence on being
based on fact. What specter would really spend all it’s time playing spooky
hide and seek games?
The film uses its location to great effect. It wouldn’t have
worked nearly as well if it took place in a modern, well-lit house with one
story and five rooms. With a movie like this, timing is everything. Anybody
who’s seen at least a couple haunted house movies pretty much knows what to
expect, and there are numerous unavoidable clues that these films provide for
when terrifying things will happen. Most of the frightening scenes in this
movie use these cues we’re all familiar with, but an effort is made to surprise
whenever possible. There are more cases than you might think in which ominous
music is followed by terribly drawn-out silences. These instances of nothing
happening when you know something eventually will are scarier than the actual
outcome of makeup-drenched creepies flying in your face.
The one thing thriller naysayers always complain about is
how stupid the characters are when faced with such horrible supernatural
occurrences. I must warn you there’s a lot of that in this movie. I know that
if an apparition manifested itself in front of me, displayed its slit wrists
and groaned, “Look what she made me do!”
I hope I would be bright enough not to
follow it around the corner.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that if these horror movie
characters weren’t stupid, there would be no opportunity for scary things to
happen. It is also true that the viewers themselves were stupid enough to walk
into a movie that they knew full well would scare the willies out of them. I
confess that I did not find The Conjuring
all that frightening, but I can certainly understand why others do. I
appreciated its eeriness more than its alarming jolts, but they both have a
place in the film’s overall success. All I can add now is…
BOO!!!
7/10
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