#dfghk REAL motive behind my not shutting up about this movie

[all-souls-matinee]

8. The Woman in Black (2012)

dir. James Watkins

Runtime: 95 minutes

Availability: Amazon Prime

That’s right, double feature, I’m back with a bad remake that I loved just as much as the bad original (and the good news is they’re bad for very different reasons.)

I actually shouldn’t be calling this a remake, because while the plot is nearly identical to that of the old tv movie, it is directly based off Susan Hill’s book rather than a rehashing of a screenplay (e.g character surnames were changed for the tv movie, here they’re back to what they were originally.) The two are also the same length, but with the benefit of a writer’s room the 2012 adaptation has much better pacing and its two biggest changes are putting more focus on the woman in black’s ‘curse’ and on Arthur’s friendship with Sam. 

The original movie has two child deaths barely onscreen, just enough to provide ‘evidence’ that there is a ghost and a curse. Film Council decided it’s go hard or go home time, and this one has three children die horribly as a precursor to the opening credits as well as a slightly modified and much more grisly version of the woman’s modus operandi. It’s a lot but it works; the deaths up the stakes and give the movie bookends to each section (including a very solid and scary third act with one of my favorite scenes ever), and Sam’s own child has died so he and Arthur actually have a reason to meet. Their chemistry is then off the charts; these two become ride-or-die for each other within five seconds and are constantly “we gotta talk about the CURSE” we gotta talk about the GHOST.” Both of these changes also fix the boring solipsism of the original (which now that I think of it would have worked better as a radio play since most of it is just a guy sitting at a desk listening to wax cylinders), but we still get the slow creepy atmosphere and the mystery element and the scares.

Sometimes a movie is the best thing you’ve ever seen and quintessential 21st century horror that’s redefining the genre... and it also has 60% on rotten tomatoes and middling to bad reviews and it kind of sucks. We can have both things. The writing is trash, there are one billion jump-scares, and it is a summer horror blockbuster made to make money (just a very posh and restrained and artful one. they were thinking about releasing it in 3D after all.) There’s also the issue of everything I gave the original 1985 movie props for ...not being there any more. The woman is now a demon rather than a ghost, and Arthur isn’t as fleshed out since the angle they chose for his kindness was ‘sad man sad because of childbirth deadwife.’ Luckily, Daniel Radcliffe singlehandedly saved cinema with his acting, and I’m ending a recommendation for an objectively bad movie with another compliment I don’t care.

Trigger warnings: suicide, arson, drowning, poisoning, i think that’s all? again, the death toll is like quintuple that of the original