Released in 2012 this was the second adaption of the novel of the same name. This movie was met by praise from the critics and saw a profit of over $100m at the box office. I am trying to shorten these middle of the road movies as I am guessing (I am doing these in order) that the more I like a movie the longer this will be but to be honest some of the bad ones have been quite long anyway. Sorry I digress.
The film stars Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, Sophie Stuckey, and Liz White. Being released a year after the last Harry Potter movie this would have been one of the first (or the first) film Daniel did following his debut in the Harry Potters franchise.
The story follows a solicitor who journeys to a sleepy village called Crythin Gifford in 1889 to retrieve any documents left by Alice Drablow the deceased owner of Eel Marsh House. A spooky arse desolate mansion estate on marshlands close to the village. Danny plays Arthur Kipps (the solicitor) and he is there ahead of the proposed sale of the house. The village is very unwelcoming to him and he finds some sympathy in Samuel Daily (Ciarán) who invites him over for a meal. The next day Arthur heads up to the Mansion and weird shit starts happening. He sees things in the corner of eyes and hears things he shouldn’t in an empty house. The scary shit gets more intense as the story goes on seeing a young boy crawling out of the ground and walking towards the house would have possibly seen me check out at that point. No, he keeps going and discovers documents about the Drablow’s adopting a child and then refusing the mother access to the child due to low mental capacity. The shit gets real when people start dying in the village and as the Woman in Black slowly reveals her secrets.
Firstly, I have to say that I have never seen the stage show of this but seeing this movie has really whetted my appetite to do so. More so than to watch this movie again. Its in the seventies as it’s a good movie every character is believable and the spooky shit is just that spooky shit!! I wouldn’t recommend watching if you sat in an old large mansion alone in the library with the best sound system money could buy. So, I should be safe to watch it again. Personally, I like Daniel Radcliffe but I am worried that he has limited acting abilities based on his post Harry Potter roles. This is probably his best ‘Non-Potter’ role that I’ve seen and the others I’ve seen has shown his lack of comedic acting and this relative period piece sees one of his perfect vehicles. I am sure he doesn’t want to be typecast but I worry about the long-Gevity of his career as he comes across as a really nice person. The film itself has all the spooky scary stuff you’d expect and the fog is everyway and adds to the atmosphere of what the hell is in there. So, if you are naturally nervous the you definitely will be by the end of this.
Comments