I’ve spoke about my relationship with Horror films before as it’s not a particularly healthy one. In all honesty I haven’t watched a scary film since 2008 when I had a pretty traumatising experience with the film ‘The Strangers’. After seeing the film and the ensuing four weeks of sleepless nights, I made the decision to stop watching them to preserve my own sanity.
So it was an odd mix of curiosity and full on nerves that I experienced as I stood at the box office of my local multiplex and asked for two tickets to ‘The Woman in Black’.
‘The Woman in Black’ is the story of Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) who is sent from London to a village in the North East to settle the affairs of the late Alice Drablow and collect the legal paper work kept at her home, the isolated Eel Marsh House. During his first visit to Eel March house Kipps sees the shrouded figure of the titular Woman. On his return to the village it comes to light that a number of children have committed suicide and his presence at the house may be to blame for another.
I don’t know what possessed me to go and see this. I think it was a mix of peer pressure and my own curiosity, but you know what? I’m glad I went. Was I borderline catatonic for the whole 95 minutes? Yes I was, but I appreciated the efforts of all involved.
I’m not a connoisseur of the genre; the total number of horror films I’ve sat and watched in my lifetime is definitely less than 10, so I can’t say I’ve seen this kind of thing done better in other things or whatever. So from here on in I’m writing from the perspective of a Horror ‘noob’ and how ‘the Woman in Black’ felt to me.
It has a lovely look to it. It’s set in Edwardian England which automatically makes everything fantastically gothic and spooky. The script is great. All the scares are dialogue free, but still, what’s there is fine and nicely played by all involved. There seemed to me to be a brilliant sense of timing throughout the film. Every scare came at the right time, every plot point paced perfectly. I really enjoyed that about it, it was scary but it didn't try and blindside you by jumping all over the place.
It’s been said that this is a bit of a weird choice for Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Potter cinematic outing. I disagree. He could have gone in a completely different direction (although to me that would smack of biting the hand that feeds) but I think this is suitably detached from his previous work as the boy wizard. For starters it’s a period piece, secondly it’s a horror film rather than broad fantasy, slightly horror inflected Potter and thirdly he’s playing an actual grown up. I think he does it well, succeeding with the period and horror aspects more so than ‘playing a grown-up’. It’s (unsurprisingly) not as good a performance as the last two Potter films, but it’s still good.
The scares build throughout the film. This was good for me as an inexperienced viewer (it helped me acclimatise myself as the film progressed), but I can see why some fans of modern Gore-Horror could find it a bit slow. I can also see how an audience would find it a bit old fashioned. Not old fashioned in the obvious period sense; you don’t get a great deal of modern ghost stories and audiences that are used to Saw-like complex mazes and Hostel-ish barbarism may find it a bit quaint.
The massive issue with this film is the rating.
Hammer, I understand, I really do. You saw your leading man; you saw his pre-existing fan base, you got pound signs in your eyes, worked out the average age of a Daniel Radcliffe fan and cut the film to fit. It makes perfect economic sense, but, however much of a good decision that was financially, I can assure you it was not a great decision with regards to the rest of your audience. My cinematic experience was only slightly hampered with the presence of a few pre-pubescent potter fans and their seemingly symbiotic relationship with their mobile phones, but my lovely friend Mark Harrison had a far worse experience. I agree with his point in this article; the issue is not that adults are taking their young children to see the film, it’s that kids between 12 and 15 are allowed to see this unaccompanied. Basically, the majority of the little sods don’t know how to behave during a film like this (or any film for that matter) and that affects every other viewer that coughed up £8 for a ticket and the privilege of being blinded by the glare of a phone or having every scare sign-posted by a squealing adolescent.
It’s unlikely I’ll be viewing many of Hammer’s future cinematic endeavours but still, I hope this doesn’t set a precedent. Tapping the 12A market is going to give the company the cash injection it needs after a series of late 70’s/early 80’s misfires and the subsequent hiatus Hammer has taken, but I hope they don’t totally abandon the faithful Horror fan-base for the potential cash of a frankly fickle teen audience.
I think I enjoyed ‘The Woman in Black’… it’s hard to tell. When you actively avoid a genre for so long it’s strange coming back into it. I genuinely didn’t know what to expect or how I’d react. The film, in part, made me want to run screaming from the showing but also had me glued to my seat and I think that was the desired effect.
Is it an entry level Horror? Possibly not, depends what kind of person you are. I think I fared better with this purely because it’s a ghost story and I don’t believe in ghosts, but I know some people that can’t watch anything with zombies in without getting sleepless nights (she can’t even watch ‘Zombieland’… that’s how scared she gets) and they’re not likely to be making the leap from silver screen to real life any time soon, so I guess it's a case of 'whatever floats your boat'.
The disappointing thing about ‘The Woman in Black’ is that the studio has invited in an audience that isn’t mature enough to appreciate the well paced, slow burning, classic horror with which they were presented. It’s always the way, the few can spoil things for the many.
Now I fancy some…
Reasons to be Cheerful!
1. The Hunger Games is out this week! EEEEEEE! I’ve just finished reading the first book and I really enjoyed it. I predominantly read non-fiction so I was surprised that I couldn’t put it down! It’ll be interesting to see how they adapt certain aspects to the big screen but so far the reviews look promising :-) Looks like I’m going to a late night screening at the weekend so I’ll let you know what I think but either way you should definitely read the book!
2. PROMETHEUS TRAILER TIME!!!!! OMG OMG OMFG! Could I be more excited???? Not really. How fit does Fassbender look as a blonde???? Very!
3. I’m FINALLY going to a screening of ‘Shame’. It’s annoyed me that I’ve had to wait this long and hunt this hard to find a screening but I knew the Warwick Arts Centre would come up trumps! I adore the Warwick Arts Centre, it’s a great venue. If you live in and around
4. My gorgeous friends from the Unbelievaball Podcast have decided to do a Marathon for Sports Relief and the lovely fools are walking from the King Power Stadium in Leicester all the way to the Ricoh Arena in
That’s all I’ve got for you today!
Goodbye till next time :-)
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