User blog:COKEMAN11/Cokeman Reviews a Piece of Media - The Woman in Black

First and foremost, I am attempting to adopt the review fad that seems to be going around. If I see a movie, finish a game, a book, listen to an album I really like/dislike/have an opinion on, I'll share. Due to the lack of artistic talent outside of character models by me, no title card. I can work on that, though. So, now I'm going to attempt at a review without bias. This may be difficult.

Let's do this. Cokeman Reviews a Piece of Media is here.

The Woman in Black
The Woman in Black is, as you may know/have guessed, is a horror movie. When I first heard about this movie, I thought it was going to be like a Men In Black feminine style. I asked my friends what it was about and they told me. I was soooooooo off. Anyway, on the release date, we went to the theater and watched it (and boy, was it packed...there were people sitting on the floor!). After recovering from a bit of shock at my first horror movie, I calmed down enough to write this review. Enjoy.

The setting is in Britain. From what I've deducted, it's in the early 1900s, because technology was very limited throughout the movie. There weren't even light bulbs. Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is a widowed lawyer. He has a housemaid (again, from what I've deducted) who is simply referred to as "nanny" by his son. His son draws a picture of him in the beginning, and I can infer to his grief from this, because Arthur's face is portrayed with a frown. He is sent by his law firm to a remote village on a job to collect the last will and testament for a woman who has recently died, Alice Drablow. During the train ride over, Arthur has a flashback to when his son is born. It is then revealed that his wife died in child birth. Upon arrival, he meets up with the firm there to collect the papers. When he arrives at the inn in which he was going to stay, they are full. He stays in an attic room for the night, and then re-meets up with the firm in the village.

He meets the family of the firm in the village, who has had a child die. This is where the horror element begins to unfold. The wife of the man who becomes Arthur’s supporting character (blanking on his name…) becomes possessed suddenly. The husband later talks with Arthur about ghosts, séances, etc. He says that he didn’t believe in the aforementioned topics until his wife had gotten possessed. He arrives at the marsh house where Alice Drablow had lived. This is where the jump scares began. When blood started spewing out of the faucet, a bunch of people left the theater for a bit, including me. From the rest of the movie (I missed about 5 minutes), I can only infer that the ghost of “the woman in black” appeared.

The typical night of jump scares in the marsh house include a moving rocking chair, images of the woman in black appearing close to Arthur, the old face-changes-in-the-mirror, and more! The ghosts of dead kids haunt their parents and all who trespass on their supposed property!

(Note: Somewhere along the way, the woman in black appears and takes the life of a child, which Arthur is later blamed for, as she died in his arms.)

The woman in black is a woman who has had her child die. Her sister entrusted the child to her. When the child dies, the two fight over this (further proved by wallpaper covering up blood writing on the walls, saying “you could have saved him”.) Whenever the woman in black appears, a child dies soon after. From the scenes shown, she appears to possess the children into self-murder. When the wife of the supporting character (again, blanking on the name) makes a reappearance, she is possessed by the son who was “killed” by the woman in black. “She makes us do it” is the giveaway here.

The first major appearance of the woman in black that I noticed (and where Arthur sees her) is when three children start a fire in their house. The last living child is seen with the woman in black, and the child drops an oil lamp next to her. She goes up in flames with the house.

When the story of the woman in black is revealed to Arthur, he tries to put her at peace by searching the marsh for the corpse of her head son. He does find him, and he washes him off and wraps him in a blanket. After placing him on his bed in his room, Arthur activates all of the toys in his room. After a moment of suspense and awkwardness, the woman in black appears for a few consecutive jump scares ending in silence. Clearly she was not at peace.

SPOILER ALERT
When the “nanny” and Arthur’s child arrive at the village to join him via train, he says that they have reviewed all of the papers and should return to their home immediately. He tells her to buy the tickets while he stands there with the child. Then, the most predictable thing happens. The woman in black appears. Arthur’s child is possessed, and begins to walk onto the train tracks. As Arthur tries to save his life as the train comes, he witnesses the woman in black as well as the ghosts of all of the dead children.

He wakes up, only to find he is alone with his son in his arms. They are then revealed to be dead. He proceeds with his wife into the afterlife in a bittersweet ending. However, they can’t resist one last jump scare when the woman in black gets a final close-up.

Review
While the movie throws jump scares at you like crazy, the plot of the movie kept me hooked. Daniel Radcliffe’s acting was great, considering he was Harry Potter for a while. This seems to be a more adult role for him. The titular ghost was explained pretty nicely throughout the plot, but there were some holes in the plot. As I understand, it is a film adaptation of the book, but this seems like a new movie to me. I can’t imagine a horror book. Anyway, some of my friends compared it to Paranormal Activity 1, saying it was terrible, and others were shaking more than I. All in all, good see if you’re up to it. If not, read the book. I skimmed it, and it’s pretty different, but the same concept. The ending is quite undesirable for some, because evil wins over (essentially). If you’re a strong Christian or other religion similar to it, this may not be the best for you because it has to do with possessing from the dead, revenge of the afterlife, etc. Dead children also may be unsettling for some because the images of them are so very common.

So, yeah. Hope you liked this. CK out.