The Woman in Black (2012)

If you were following my blog when I was doing the Halloween month, you would know that I had to take all the courage out of me to sit through the last part of intense horror movies which resulted in maybe 2 weeks of sleepless nights.  If you weren’t, don’t feel left out, you can hope over HERE to check out the list of what I watched in the three parts.  However, I have learned a lot about myself and horror movies and a few years back before that stupid incident watching The Haunting of Connecticut which literally haunted me since then into not ever being able to watch a horror movie, I am capable to do it so I’ve been trying hard to get back into it.

After a crazy few days catching up and watching and reviewing a whole bunch of rom-coms and romantic dramas, yesterday on Valentine’s Day I decided to give into my boyfriend’s ultimate love and watch a horror movie, the one named up in the title –The Woman in Black.  Take a guess as to how last night went for me…Oh right, with that said, remember that I’m mega easily scared so if you’re a hardcore horror fan, you definitely won’t feel the same level of fright.

Director: James Watkins

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Liz White,Janet McTeer
A lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is given one last chance to prove his worth in his office and sent to take care of an outstanding account of checking and getting Eel Marsh House ready for sale after the recently deceased Mrs. Drablow.  On the train he meets, Sam Daily (Ciaran Hinds) who offers to take him to his hotel in Cryphin Gifford. He starts feeling that he is unwelcome and even the man that was supposed to help him with the paperwork for Eel Marsh House arranged to sent him back.  However, he decided to go to take care of it himself.  As the house is surrounded by marshlands, it is restricted to certain times where he could not get back onto the mainland until the tide recedes.  On his first visit to the house, he sees a strange woman in black lurking in the woods nearby.  However, the mysterious woman disappears from his view.  When he gets back into town, he learns that the children in this town has been dying off in weird ways.  He also comes to know that one of the children lost is Mr. Daily’s son, Nicholas.  As a result, Mrs. Daily (Janet McTeer) has been unstable mentally, and at times, she seems to believe that she is possessed by the spirit of her son.  He soon learns that he is unwelcome because whoever sees the woman in black will cause a death of at least one child in the town.  Mr. Daily disregards the superstitions and agrees to help Arthur to get to Eel Marsh House against the others wishes.  It is there Arthur finds papers from a woman called Jennet (Liz White) to Mrs. Drablow, accusing her of the murder of her son and sending her off to a mental institution.  The night Arthur spends in the house turns out to be more than he expected: a vengeful ghost and the secrets that the manor held.

As I’m writing that summary up there, I was turning around and feeling my heart rate go up. Technically, I have to say, my boyfriend should be doing the review.  I spent probably the second half of the movie with my hand covering a part of my face or looking partially at the screen when I needed my hands to cover my eyes.  You know those sudden scares that we call cheap scares, right? They showed up a lot.  And I seriously get creeped out when its about 1) ghosts 2) children and this flick had both. To me, this was a really good horror movie.  My boyfriend was startled a few times also.  This one was definitely creepy and if you’ve seen this, I’m saying right now…that ending is just horrible..in a creepy good way. My guess is that if you are horror fan, you might still get some enjoyment out of this but this movie is a bit predictable.  But since I’m easily scared, even when I predict something to happen, I’ll still not exactly know how its executed so it still scares me, but I still managed to know when the director tried to startle the audience.

Now that we’ve acknowledge this horror flick achieved its scare factor on me, I’m going straight out to say that Daniel Radcliffe’s first movie after Harry Potter is quite good.  They gave him a good story.  I always have this issue with how certain actors always jump out of a franchise and get these horror movie scripts and half the time, its some retarded flick (and thats coming from me, the ultimate easily scared audience).  This one was really good in that level.  He did great as a mature lawyer, a father of a little boy and at the same time a mourning widower.  Its a big change from Harry Potter is all I’m saying.  Plus, the people in this town and the child actors blew me away.  They all did such a great job at securing the creepy, weird, eerie vibe of a town thats gone through a lot of tragedy and death.  As much as there were times with other people, Daniel Radcliffe did carry a good portion of this movie by himself in the haunted manor.  I do look forward to what else he has to offer after this.

I need to stop the writing this review because I’m getting all creeped out thinking of the movie.  A good horror movie with cheap scares and eerie atmosphere that does what it sets out to do.  You bet that I won’t be picking up this movie (or any other horror ghost related  flick) in a while.  I do recommend this.  I do know some people probably won’t get a lot of scares out of this but, its a decent movie.

What type of horror movies usually creep you out: ghosts/spirits, zombies, slasher, possession, etc?