If you haven’t heard anything about THE WOMAN IN BLACK where have you been for the past few months? I think I’ve heard more reviews of this than any other movie, ever! I don’t think I’d heard a negative review and certainly the hype surrounding it achieved what it set out to do. I arrived at the cinema prepared to be scared, terrified even.
Written in 1983 by Susan Hill, The Woman in Black was later turned into a stage play and is still running at the Fortune Theatre in London. It is the second longest running play in history, after Mouse Trap.
It tells the story of a young, widowed lawyer, Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) who leaves his son with the Nanny while he travels to the small east coast town of Crythin Gifford to attend to the estate of the recently deceased Alice Drablow. He receives a rather cold welcome from local residents who refuse to give him any information about the Drablow family, deny him a place to stay and repeatedly suggest he leave. The estate is located on Nine Lives Causeway, which is completely cut off from the road and mainland during high tide and of course Arthur is there alone. As he works through the papers, Arthur begins to uncover the secrets of the house and family with chilling and spine tingling results. He is subjected to an onslaught of vengeful encounters with the Woman in Black and the children that she has taken from the village.
The story is slow and the plot weak but that further builds on the expectation of terror and we were there to be scared and scared we were.The ending has been changed for the film and I liked the little twist. For a second I thought we might be left guessing, but was relieved when the Woman in Black made her final appearance to Arthur.
The set was perfectly full of grey stone houses and the weather was dreary. Thunder and lightning added to the effects and it reminded me of being on a ghost train as a child, ready and waiting to be petrified. Great fun, but you should watch it with someone you like, as you’ll cling to each other.
My rating 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment