An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2012’s The Woman in Black
Lawyer and widower Arthur Kipps (played by Daniel Radcliffe) is sent to the deceased Alice Drablow’s estate called the Eel Marsh House to retrieve paperwork but upon arriving discovers a strange village and a spirit that seeks vengeance on all.
Is it Scary?
Yes! The Woman in Black has a few jump scares but also has some great background scares if you pay attention. It creates a creepy atmosphere where you’re never quite sure if there’s something lurking in the shadows… and at times there is.
Detailed Plot:
We open the film with three young girls having a tea party in the attic-turned-bedroom of a house. All three then look off camera and then towards the window, in unison they get up and proceed to throw themselves out of the window. We then hear a woman’s scream as we pan out and see the black veil of a woman standing just off camera.
So, you know, HOLY SHIT!
The opening credits roll in and we see scenes of two people getting married before we open on Arthur Kipps (played by Daniel Radcliffe) putting a razor to his throat. We’re meant to understand the flashes of scenes during the credits were Arthur’s memories of his deceased wife. He then sees her in his mirror but when he turns around she’s gone.
He finishes packing a small suitcase as his son, Joseph, calls for him to show him a drawing of the family; himself, the nanny, mommy up in heaven, and finally Arthur with a sad face. When asked why he drew him with a sad face, Joseph says that’s just what he looks like. Hermann Rorschach would have had a field day interpreting this drawing.
Joseph and his nanny (played by Jessica Raine) say goodbye to Arthur and make plans to meet him at the train station in the town of Crythin Gifford in a few days.
We next see Arthur, who is a lawyer, receiving his next assignment from his boss. His job is to visit the Eel Marsh House at Crythin Gifford owned by the deceased Mrs. Alice Drablow and search through a “mountain of paperwork” to ensure they have her final will. We also learn Arthur is on thin ice as his boss warns him the he must do a good job or he no longer has a future at the firm.
On the train Arthur falls asleep and dreams of the day his wife died four years ago, during the birth to Joseph. He awakes to find the wealthy Samuel Daily (played by Ciarán Hinds) and his dog sitting across from him. Having glanced at the documents Arthur is carrying, Samuel knows Arthur is on his way to the Eel Marsh House and offers to give him a lift to the nearby inn.
At the inn, the locals give Arthur some pretty “you don’t belong here” looks. The innkeeper, Mr. Fisher, tells Arthur they don’t have any rooms available despite the law firm having telegraphed and reserved a room ahead of time.
Since there’s a pretty bad storm going on, Mrs. Fisher attempts to convince her husband to give him a room but he says the only thing available is the attic. Who doesn’t want to sleep in an attic in a strange town where everyone appears to hate you during a storm?
Mrs. Fisher brings Arthur to the attic, opening the door to reveal the same fucking room where the three girls died in the beginning of the movie. The pictures around the room show us the girls were the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Fisher.
The following morning Arthur arrives at the Solicitor, Mr. Jerome’s, home to meet with him and make their way to the isolated Eel Marsh House. But, Mr. Jerome has other plans and attempts to rush him out of town.
He gives him a small envelope with some paperwork and tells him he didn’t need to make the journey to Crythin Gifford at all. When Arthur says he needs to review all the paperwork, Mr. Jerome tells him there’s no more and he’s even arranged a stage coach to take him back to the train station.
Arthur asks to use a telephone to contact his office but is told no one in Crythin Gifford has a telephone, when he asks if he can send a telegram, he’s told the post office is closed. Mr. Jerome then gently pushes Arthur out of the house telling him his train leaves in half an hour.
Outside Arthur tells the stagecoach driver there’s a change of plans and tells him to take him to the Eel Marsh House and not the train. The driver at first refuses but then tells him he’ll do it for six shillings as no one else would be willing to go there.
How much is six shillings in today’s money? Who the hell knows but it sounds like a lot judging by Arthur’s reaction. Arthur reluctantly agrees because this is a movie and he has to or it all ends.
The driver let’s him out by the front gate, refuses to cross it, and tells him he’ll pick him at five but no earlier. Arthur agrees and sets off on foot crossing a cemetery to get to the empty house.
While looking through the decrepit house the Woman in Black appears behind Arthur but he doesn’t see her. The sink then turns on on it’s own releasing a thick sludge before turning off.
Arthur sets up a desk and begins going through all the paperwork, finding a death certificate of Mrs. Drablow’s son; Nathaniel, stating he drowned in the marshlands but his body was never found. He’s then interrupted by sounds of thuds and squeaking coming from upstairs and goes to investigate.
In a bedroom he finds a crows nest and when opening the window to let them out, he sees the Woman in Black standing in the cemetery.
Arthur runs outside, sees no sign of the woman, but hears a woman’s scream coming from the marshlands in front of the house. After searching a bit, the fog thickens preventing him from seeing anything but he can still hear sounds of horses, a child screaming, and other men yelling. The combined sounds cause Arthur to believe their was an accident but he finds no evidence of this.
Turning around there’s a jump scare with the driver of the stage coach showing up to take Arthur back to town. The driver takes him to the constable where Arthur tells him there was an accident in the marshes but, the constable tells him no one has used that roadway for years since Nathaniel drowned there.
When Arthur tells him that’s not true since he saw a woman there earlier, the constable looks like he shit his pants and excuses himself.
Two boys then walk in holding up their sister, Victoria, who is deathly ill from accidentally drinking lye. Before Arthur can do anything, Victoria spits up blood and dies in his arms.
The following day Arthur meets with Samuel Daily who has invited him to his place for dinner with him and his wife, Elisabeth. At the dinner we learn the Daily’s had a son, Nicholas, who died long ago and this caused Elisabeth to have a psychotic break.
Though it’s not apparent anything is wrong until she starts talking about children. This triggers her to start channeling Nicholas through her and she starts carving the table with a knife.
Later that night Arthur and Sam have drinks and discuss the supernatural and seances. Sam doesn’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural but Arthur is unsure ever since his wife passed away.
The following day Sam drives Arthur back to Mr. Jerome’s home where they find his daughter, Lucy, has barricaded herself in the basement. She yells at Arthur to go away, blaming him for Victoria’s death.
Sam and Arthur leave but upon reaching the edge of town, they find the men of the village, including the constable, blocking the road. Mr. Fisher tells him it’s his fault Victoria is dead because he saw “that woman”.
Sam says he’ll take Arthur to the train station but instead drives forward, almost hitting the men who dive out of the way. As they drive to the Eel Marsh House, Sam tells Arthur the people of the village believe in the supernatural and think they are cursed.
Dropping him off at the house, Arthur tells him he is going to work through the night, leading Sam to give him some food and let him borrow a dog for some company. Inside, while Arthur continues gathering more paperwork he sees the hand of a child hit a door from across the hall.
Finding no one he continues working but the dog begins barking and leads him outside to the cemetery. There the dog leads Arthur to the graves of Nathaniel and Alice Drablow as well as the grave of her sister Jennet. Not seeing anyone in the cemetery, he heads back to the house but spots the Woman in Black in a window.
Arthur runs back in the house and searches the rooms finding no one but does find documents that show Nathaniel wasn’t Alice’s son. Instead, Nathaniel was Jennet’s son who was adopted by Alice and her husband when they forced Jennet into a mental institution.
He next finds letters from Jennet to Alice where Jennet is becoming more aggressive towards her believing she is doing this to hurt her instead of for the good of Nathaniel. After Nathaniel’s death, a letter from Jennet shows she blames Alice for his death and tells her to rot in hell. Finally, Arthur finds a death certificate for Jennet showing she hung herself in the Eel Marsh House nursery, a room that was barricaded when Arthur searched the house earlier.
I guess Arthur thinks family trauma is boring because he closes his eyes and falls asleep. At the other end of the hallway we see the Woman in Black appear.
Before she can reach him the dog starts barking, waking him up, and saving his life. Arthur then hears a rocking chair creaking and echoing on the second floor from the nursery. He attempts to open the door as the creaking gets louder but finds it locked. He runs downstairs to get an axe to break it open and when returning to the second floor, the door is now wide open. The creaking still emanating from the room.
Entering, he finds no one sitting on the rocking chair yet it continues to rock. For a moment we see the Woman in Black rocking on the chair before she vanishes. Looking around the room he sees some ripped wallpaper and peels it off, revealing what was the final message Jennet left to Alice before taking her own life.
Continuing to search the house he looks out the window to see a storm has started but probably more important, a child rising out from the muddy marshes and walking towards the home. He then sees a handprint appear on the window in front of him.
For some reason, he touches the handprint and the image of a woman probably Jennet appears in the reflection yelling in a very effective jump scare. That is to say, it scared the shit out of me.
Downstairs, the dog starts barking and someone knocks at the front door. The doorknob shakes as if someone is trying to get in and Arthur yells out “who’s there” causing the person to stop. A moment later it starts back up more aggressively and Arthur, with axe in hand, opens the door.
He rushes outside and sees the ghostly figures of all the children the Woman in Black has killed, including Victoria, standing in front of the house.
Arthur runs back in the home, because duh, and sees muddy footprints leading to the nursery. Entering the nursery, he sees some mechanical toys have been activated and a music box playing on it’s own.
He turns off the music box but sees someone run past from the corner of his eye. The ghost of Jennet then appears dressed in black and acts out her hanging in the middle of the room causing Arthur to drop his candle.
Picking it back up, he sees the ghost of a child in front of him covered in mud and yelling, making Arthur run out of the room. At the end of the hall, the Woman in Black appears and he rushes into a room locking the door behind him. Something black emerges from the bed and Arthur runs out of the house where Sam has just arrived.
On the drive back to the village, Arthur tells Sam what happened but Sam believes it was his mind playing tricks on him. They arrive at the village finding multiple houses on fire including Mr. Jerome’s with Mrs. Jerome yelling for Lucy who is still in the house.
Arthur runs in and down to the basement where he sees Lucy standing at the other end of the room holding an oil lamp, the rest of the room on fire. He tells her not to move as he will save her but Lucy looks towards the other end of the room where we see the Woman in Black watching. Lucy then takes the oil lamp and breaks it at her feet, engulfing herself in fire.
Later, Arthur sees Elisabeth at Nicholas’ grave and asks her how he died. She tells him he was out at the beach with friends and they say the tide came out of nowhere pulling him in. She then looks at Arthur and is able to tell he has seen the Woman in Black.
Elisabeth tells him the Woman in Black is always there when a child dies as she causes them to commit suicide and it always happens after someone, doesn’t matter who, sees the Woman in Black in the marshlands or the house.
Elisabeth then channels the spirits of several children who tell Arthur the Woman in Black takes the children of the village as punishment for taking hers. Elisabeth picks up a rock and scratches a drawing of Arthur’s son and nanny at the train station telling him they’re the next target.
Sam arrives seeing the drawing and decides to help Arthur return to the village to send a telegram to the nanny as a warning. But, arriving at the village they find it burned down. With the next town being over an hour away, the two realize it will be too late to stop Joseph and his nanny from boarding the train.
Arthur formulates a plan to reunite the body of Nathaniel with Jennet thinking she will then be at peace and not try to kill his son. They drive back to the marshlands where Arthur saw the boy rise from the mud the night before and ties a rope to his waist, attaching the other end to the car.
Arthur enters the mud and is able to find Nathaniel’s body in the carriage pulling it out with the rope.
Later at the Eel Marsh House, Arthur has placed Nathaniel’s body in the nursery and intends on getting the Woman in Black to show up to see him there. He turns on the mechanical toys in the room and starts playing the music box and waits. Meanwhile on the first floor Sam sees the ghost of his son and follows him where he gets trapped in a room.
Back upstairs the Woman in Black finally appears and flies towards Arthur in a double jump scare but disappears after seeing Nathaniel’s body. Believing it worked, he and Sam, now free, bury Nathaniel with Jennet in her grave.
Later, Arthur and Sam arrive at the train station right as Joseph and his nanny arrive. Arthur hugs his son and tells the nanny to purchase tickets back to London as they won’t be staying the night.
What Arthur didn’t realize was the letters Jennet sent to Alice stated she would “never forgive” them for killing her son. Meaning she didn’t want to be reunited with Nathaniel, she only wants revenge.
While talking to Sam, out of the corner of his eye, Arthur sees the Woman in Black and then turns to see Joseph has wandered onto the tracks as a train approaches. Arthur jumps down on the tracks and attempts to save him.
As the train passes, Sam sees all the ghostly figures in the reflection of the train cars and even sees the Woman in Black. The film ends with Arthur opening his eyes with Joseph in his arms, seemingly alive, but this is a fake out. In the distance they see his dead wife meaning the train killed them and are now in the afterlife.
The family reunites and walks off to live happily ever after.
Review
The Woman in Black is a great spooky time movie and definite recommend. The acting is great and you really feel like your trying to piece together a mystery with the characters. It’s also a slow burn so if that’s not your thing you might find the first 20 minutes or so boring but it picks up once Arthur gets to the house.
Once inside the film does a great job creating a haunted house ambiance and having things move in the background to create an unsettling feeling.
Don’t expect blood and gore or dead bodies, The Woman in Black tends to lean more towards slow-burn psychological horror than anything else and it works really well.
Highly recommend.
Cast IMBD