With the announcement of The Woman in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2), the public’s curiosity did not concern the film’s plot or other details. We wondered if Radcliffe could escape his public image as Harry Potter and the franchise that has controlled his life for the past decade.
The supernatural horror genre may not seem like such a big leap from the wizarding world, but the two worlds do indeed exist separately. Even with plenty of old-fashioned cloaks and ghosts, the similarities between the worlds of The Woman in Black and Harry Potter end there.
If you’re hoping Radcliffe will draw his magic wand and dispel the blasted ghoul back to hell, prepare for disappointment.
For everyone else, The Woman in Black is a somber salute to the most complex accomplishment in horror cinema: creating an unnerving atmosphere.
The movie’s plot is brain-dead simple, leaving room for the visuals to speak for themselves. Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) is a lawyer sent to a remote (and foggy) seaside town to finish closing out the estate on a mysterious mansion that can only be reached when the tide waters are low.
Cue vengeful spirit.
The movie doesn’t try to break horror conventions. In fact, The Woman in Black revels in old-school scare tactics.
All the boos and ahs come straight off the stereotypical horror shortlist of ways to frighten audiences. There are sudden loud noises, shifting shapes in the background and inexplicably unmanned rocking chairs all throughout the film. The key difference is the surrounding atmosphere doesn’t feel contrived at all.
A prime example of this is the film’s shining centerpiece, a wordless 25 minute tour in and around the ghostly manor’s shadows, as Kipps tries to survive a night alone in the house, a theme that loosely references the 1959 classic, House on Haunted Hill.
Using the audience’s imagination against them, the constant tension in this long, bloodless scene bridges the gap between the slow-moving first act and the third act, which loses sight of why the middle was so unnerving.
The latter section of The Woman in Black is still enthralling, but it tends to show more than is necessary in an attempt to up the ante after the first long scare-fest. There’s still no blood spray, but glimpses of the ghosts become longer and more focused, which in turn makes their presence less threatening.
Still, the unforgiving narrative wraps up nicely in its predictable but depressing final moment, which is sure to leave a few Harry Potter fans more than a bit perturbed.
The Woman in Black is a surprise — its bloodless world of fear is far scarier than any of its torture-porn peers or 1980s slasher reboots. Most surprising of all, Radcliffe puts on a performance that is all but completely removed from Harry Potter. Granted, he doesn’t do much acting besides walking around slowly. It is also hard to imagine him as a grown man with a baby boy, but this movie proves that Radcliffe does have a chance to move on.
VERDICT: Daniel Radcliffe distances himself from Harry Potter with The Woman in Black, a refreshing throwback to horror movie classics.
berman@umdbk.com
