THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Have you heard the one about the woman who thought her house was haunted, only to find out she was the one doing the haunting? How about the one where grave robbers exhume a body and are surprised to see that its one they thought was completely destroyed?

Heard those huh?

What about this one…

Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is a young English lawyer struggling to make ends meet. His wife died in childbirth and he has spent every day since carrying the sadness of that tragedy. As the bills begin to mount, he finds himself willing to take any task his firm hands him. As if on cue, they hand him the strangest task one could get.

He is sent to a small tucked-away town to settle the estate of Alice Drablow. For reasons he can’t understand, Kipps’ errand seems to be stirring up bad vibes from the townspeople, all of whom seem to want him to leave town almost as fast as he got there. In requesting to venture to Drablow’s manor, he happens upon the source of the townspeople’s anxieties.

The town believes that it is haunted by a woman in black. They believe that she specifically has brought upon them some of the greatest pain that could be bought. Almost to a man, they agree that the woman comes from Drablow’s isolated mansions and that the best chance anyone has at safety is to stay far away from it.

Kipps isn’t one for superstition – but not long after his first steps on to the Drablow property, h begins to change his tune.

Something about ghost stories has always fascinated me. They remind me of the campfires I used to sit around as a child, and have a great inescapable element to them. How are you supposed to protect yourself from a ghost? Every other boogieman comes with some sort of weakness (silver bullets, holy water, etc). If a malcontent who has unfinished business with this world wants to mess you up, all you can do is run – and even then you have to hope they don’t follow. You have to love the way a ghost story centres on something terrible happening to the soul while they were alive. Now you don’t have to specifically cross what’s left of them to put yourself in harm’s way, you just have to get their attention. Freaky, ain’t it?

THE WOMAN IN BLACK is a great ghost story. It preys not only on our fear for our own safety, but our the greater fear of harm coming to those we love. It’s at its best when it trusts itself, which it never does more than a dialogue-free stretch of almost twenty minutes. During this wonderfully eerie sequence, the filmmakers seem to be having the most fun as they make the house bump, moan, and creak. The hairs on one’s arm stand on end as shadows move unexpectedly, and the brain begs for as macabre words and visuals seem to live in every corner of the estate. Radcliffe does a commendable job of selling this paranormal activity, and responding with the right mix of guts and dread.

The unfortunate part is that the film doesn’t always trust itself. The film contains six or seven jump-scares (which is to be expected), but doesn’t allow them to shock the audience on their own. Instead, the film feels the need to boost them by bringing the score crashing in. It’s a cheat, and an unfortunate one since most of these jump-scares would actually be pretty good on their own. In addition, one character feels like a cartoon. The character is supposed to be disturbed due to unspeakable atrocity, however the way the character is directed she turns more into an eccentric loon.

The good news is that neither of these two missteps are enough to sink this movie – far from it. Radcliffe plays Kipps with a lot of chronic sadness. There’s more to his part in this story than just a terrorized lawyer acting scared. His story is one of deep pain – the sort os pain that comes from losing one’s spouse so young, and then trying to pick up the pieces well enough to raise a son. Such desperation would drive one to great lengths (so long as you can avoid falling in on yourself). It can drive one to declare that “everything is fine”, even if the bills are out of control, and their permanent frown is noticeable to a child. Such desperation could even drive them to go on a fool’s errand with the mindset that it’s their last chance. Radcliffe has that sadness and desperation written on his face, never letting the audience forget it.

There’s an isolation in this story that seems to underscore everything. As I mentioned before, the only defence one has in a ghost story is to run – but what happens when there’s nowhere to run to? That anxiety is what stokes THE WOMAN IN BLACK. The town itself is sequestered off by itself…the house is surrounded by marshlands that make it inaccessible when the tides come in during the night…even the rooms within the house are wide and spacious, offering no shelter from the darkness that resides within them.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK is a chilling tale that knows all the tricks. It knows how creepy mere children’s toys can be in the right light – further, it knows how creepy children themselves can be when draped with a certain detached melancholy. What’s best, is the way it knows how a darkened theatre is the best way to take advantage of an audience’s imagination, merely by the sound of an unexpected thump one floor above. It’s a great ghost story – and it doesn’t even have to hold the flashlight to its chin

Matineescore: ★ ★ ★ out of ★ ★ ★ ★

What did you think? Please leave comments with your thoughts and reactions on THE WOMAN IN BLACK.