Film Review- The Woman in Black

Technically The Woman in Black is a film that shouldn't have worked. There was nothing new in this film and there wasn't any real shocking twist (despite what the adverts said!) however, it was a hit at the box office.

What The Woman in Black did do well was that it took the slightly tired old cliché’s we see in every horror film (e.g. jump scares, haunted house, creepy children, scary woman, mad villagers) and presented them in simple, clean and attractive visuals.

The film is beautifully shot. The scene where we first see the great marshland next to the sea still captivates me and holds me breathless when I remember it. The haunted house looks very decrepit and really scary, to the point where I would go as far as saying that it was more intimidating that the ghost (our title character also known in the film as the late Jennet Humfrye) herself.

What I particularly liked is that, unlike so many horror films, we do not spend a lot of time watching our protagonist (Arthur Kipps- played by Daniel Radcliffe) running around the building screaming. So many haunted house films decide to do a Scooby Doo and have as many characters high tailing it around as many set-pieces as possible. I understand why some directors do this; it’s to throw the viewer off balance so that we are as bewildered and confused as the characters; however there is something deeply unsettling about how we are allowed to focus on just those few rooms in The Woman.

It gives us time to get to know the rooms, to understand why they were significant to the ghost (one being where she saw her son die, and where she then killed herself after leaving a message on the wall by way of suicide note.) 

I am sure that a lot of the reason behind why the set-pieces were limited in The Woman was because it was keeping in spirit with the original stage play. The claustrophobic indoors of the mansion all add to the film’s strength which is to build up tension and hold it at its highest peak for as long as possible. It’s a good thing the film was only an hour and a half, as any longer and people may have become exhausted or bored.

The only other theatrics I found in the film were some of the side characters. I don’t think they were over-acting (I found the acting to be rather good on the whole) but it did seem very wide-eyed and dramatic at times that it skirted close to being funny. The one guilty of this were Daily’s wife, Elizabeth, who had to bring out two doggies who she called her children and then throughout the film kept trying to draw (with a dagger, mind you) but her husband wouldn't let her. It was tragic on the one hand, a poor woman who was tormented by the spirit of her dead son, and unable to get over his loss as a result. On the other hand, it seemed like parts were meant to be funny, which took away from the tragedy a little, and it is difficult to make a woman crying out and carving into a table during dinner not look a bit too theatrical and silly.

The second guilty parties are the villagers on the whole. Sometimes they reminded me of The League of Gentleman characters; a series of bizarre villagers doing strange things and not always for a clear reason. 

 The inevitable question that must be flung at the high-strung villagers is this; why don’t they simply move village?

Instead of the basement, why not just a different village all together?

Considering such a simple option seemed to lie before them (if that option wasn’t there, it was never explained in the film) their aggression and crazy antics (i.e. locking a girl in a basement to live out her childhood years) almost too ridiculous. Where the villagers driven insane by Jennet’s spirit, hence causing their own deranged, self-destructive behaviour? By the end of the film, the audience are left with more questions than answers, but I do not think that is a criticism of it. Rather, I think the uncertainty of what was real and what was imagined, makes Jennets spirit all the more powerful and the film all the more sinister and mysterious.

Finally, we should talk about Daniel Radcliff’s acting, as this was the main worry many fans of the book and play seemed to have. Could the Harry Potter star pull it off? Like most people, I think he did the best he could with the material he had.  He acted sufficiently well, he came across as likeable and I followed him happily throughout the film.

The problem is that Arthur Kipps doesn’t do that much in the film, other than walk around, get confused and look afraid. However, what made Radcliffe stand out to me was the back story, which explains his obsession with finding Jennet’s ghost and why he has such difficulty connecting with his son, or other people in general. Early on in the film I understood that Arthur Kipps was, no pun intended, a haunted man; a man with a dark past and he was unable to get over it despite the fact that it was seriously affecting his life in a negative manner. I think Radcliffe is to thank for this. He got the role down very well, and even when the storyline began to take over and became the focus, I left the cinema feeling like I knew who Kipps was and why he did the things that he did.

Kipps just looks mildly perturbed most of the time...

In terms of the film, Radcliffe’s quiet performance works very well; it’s what this film needs amongst the illogical madness it is selling us. Arthur Kipps is essentially us, the ordinary man or woman, thrown into a strange and frightening story that is unbelievable yet captivating.

I think that even though it doesn’t do anything new, it does the old style Hammer horror style very well. The fact that the old fashioned style of horror seemed to affect people more than our more modern horrors, I think reflects poorly on our modern films. The Woman in Black shows us that we do not need outpourings of blood and gore, extreme violence or a plethora of dull, young characters being murdered in creative ways, in order to get a scare.

Sometimes vengeance, obsession and shadows are all we need.