The Woman in Black
B+ | Watkins
Lisa-Anna Migliore
James Watkins’ latest horror film, The Woman in Black, successfully proves that a chilling adrenaline rush can be invoked in audience members without relying on gore or exhaustive amounts of CGI. This ghost story centers around young Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2), a widowed lawyer who journeys to a remote village with a haunting secret. Resembling Dracula's Jonathan Harker as he travels to Transylvania, poor outsider Kipps cannot fathom why everyone is so anxious to keep him away from the abandoned estate Eel Marsh. Nonetheless, thoughts of his four year old son waiting for him back in London drive him to finish handling the assets of its recently deceased owner, Alice Drablow, by any means necessary. However, he soon comes face to face with a vengeful figure dressed in black whose secret past may lend answers to the increasing deaths of children in the town.
As Danielle Radcliffe’s first major acting role following the conclusion of the Harry Potter series, The Woman in Black severs the umbilical cord connecting him to the young boy with the lightning bolt scar. Radcliffe compellingly entails the inner determination of Kipps, a father trying to stabilize his life following the death of his beloved wife, from start to finish of the film. The maturing of his acting style is greatly showcased in the complexity and beauty of the film, adapted from the book by 19th century horror novelist, Susan Hill. Granted, at first it’s awkward to fathom Radcliffe as anything other than the wizard we’ve all come to know and love, but gradually spectators acknowledge the actor in this new setting and enjoy it.
The suspense that drives this film builds out of three things modern horror films are increasingly starting to lack: visual anonymity, manipulation of sound, and an anti-cliché ending. From murky swamps, shadowy hallways and foggy enveloping clouds, this film exercises its right to put both the main character and audience in the dark, unaware of what lies beyond what is visible, in many artistic ways. From screams to crow caws, Watkins’ also understood when to perfectly cut sound and introduce an unwelcome one in order to invoke a most thrilling sensation in spectators. The jarring ending of this film also heightens its tension, and leaves one shaking even after the credits start rolling.
Though this film could have been a lot scarier, it serves as a delightful thrill into the haunted world of the woman in black. The film, which is only ninety minutes long, should have added at least one more frightening scene amongst moments in the narration of equilibrium. Nonetheless, The Woman in Black serves as an impressive ghost story that relies on real world elements to create a raw sense of terror. Creaky floor boards, dancing shadows, and dolls from hell all replace the trepidation that modern motion pictures generate in post-production editing.
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