The Woman in Black Review

The Woman in Black Review

Summery
Daniel Radcliffe’s committed but inadequate central performance doesn’t do this repetitive, formulaic jump-scare filled film any favours.

Full Review
I, like many others, only really took an interest in The Woman in Black to examine how it’s leading actor, Daniel Radcliffe would perform outside his Potter comfort zone. To cut a long story short, Radcliffe neither shines nor fails, managing to give a performance containing the bare minimum needed for a pass, and nothing more. He looks scared, that’s about it. There is a scene near the beginning when his character, Arthur Kipps is looking in the mirror, thinking about his late wife that is about as good as Radcliffe’s performance gets, featuring one shot of pretty good emoting, but that’s the high point, and it’s not really high enough.

Now, with Radcliffe aside, we can get on with the film…

The cinema loving purist in me is finding it quite difficult to negatively review TWiB, despite the fact that I didn’t really like it all that much. Ultimately it’s a horror film that actually tries to be a horror film, it tries to create suspense, chills and genuine atmosphere, and it doesn’t do the worst conceivable job, and, for that, it is to be commended, in the modern era of films being called horrors just because they’re filled to the brim with gore, it is a refreshing and welcome effort to actually try and get in the head of the viewer and create some genuine creeping fear.

 I’d like very much to be able to say that it did it’s job to the full and that it will no doubt issue in a new era of psychological horrors, but, I must be honest. So, to that end: The Woman in Black, for all it’s integrity and it’s heart being in the right place, simply isn’t that good.

Daniel Radcliffe simply isn’t a good enough actor to carry a film, and this is a film that demanded a very strong central performance, given how much focus is centred on it’s main character. And for all it’s desire to create a psychological, atmospheric chill-fest, it’s still far too reliant on “jump-scares”, the scares becoming monotonous and formulaic. Horror 101: If you wish to snare your audience with a dense, atmospheric… atmosphere, then having a script that is repetitive to the point that you’re wondering whether or not the screenwriter is genuinely amnesic can be very counterproductive to the desired outcome. It isn’t long before you work out that the basic formula is tension-jump scare-downtime, repeat for about 90 minutes with intermittent and ultimately uninteresting plot elements thrown in every now and then in a vain and asinine attempt to add some direly needed freshness to the film. For what it’s worth, yes, I did jump throughout the film, if you want to call that horror then by all means be my guest, but the fact is, you can call a tomato a vegetable as much as you want, repeating it over and over again won’t make it anymore true, and repeating the same jump scare formula over and over again doesn’t make it any more scary.

Should I See It ?
If you just want some cheap scares, then give it a watch. Everyone else, move along, nothing to see here.


Overall Score: 52/100 (E Grade)