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The Woman in Black

Writer's picture: Mr. PatMr. Pat

Updated: Jul 19, 2021

The 32nd review!

It’s October and it’s the return of Mr. Pat’s 31 Days of Halloween! A bit of background information, I was watching some videos by James Rolfe of Angry Video Game Nerd fame, where he video reviewed a horror movie for every day in October, and I thought that seemed like a fun idea. I grew up watching and loving horror movies, and it had previously occurred to me that the fear I used to feel while watching those movies had long since left. Part of the reason I decided to do this was for my own enjoyment and the other reason was I wanted to see if there was a movie that could make me feel that way again.

Before I begin, let me get some things out of the way; no, I am not the most talented writer in the world, I occasionally will go on tangents, and artsy fartsy things like “cinematography” and pretty shots will not win you awards from me. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a great example, it was shot beautifully but it was so unbelievably boring. Three hours of Brad Pitt whining and being a dick and the movie had the audacity to try and make you sympathize with him. That movie sucked. No I will be basing my reviews mainly on how entertaining the movie was, and how scary it was.

I decided I’m going to double dip as much as I can this year so I’ll probably review a good amount of horror movies that came out this year because I don’t work at the theater anymore and my movie list is severely hurting. I decided to kick start my month and I would watch a movie that Colin had asked me about none other than,

The Woman in Black.

The movie starts off quick, quick in the sense that three little girls jump out of a window in the first two minutes. The main character, Arthur, is played by Harry Potter as a muggle, he works for a law firm, had a wife who died giving birth to his 4 year old son, and he is having some bad money problems. If I could sum it up, it’s a revenge ghost story set in the early 1900’s, if you see the Woman she murders a child or three, kind of an overreaction, but she’s a ghost and she’s pissed off. As an aside, I think watching “Supernatural” ruined ghost stories for me. As soon as they popped open a certain grave I immediately thought to myself, “Alright, salt and burn the bones.”

As for the movie it has some good scares, the atmosphere in the house was creepy, and it had all the good ghosty type things, rocking chair, creepy toy noisemakers, and her appearing and disappearing for maximum effect. There are some unnerving moments and moments where things make you jump, but nothing that’ll stay with you after watching it. As for the elephant in the room, yes it’s Harry Potter, and no he does not get naked with a horse. The other elephant, I was worried that they were setting up to have the dog die, but thankfully it did not!

I do have some gripes but some of them are nit picky. For one thing The Woman, pre-ghost had sent her sister some really pissed off letters, ending one of them with “Rot in Hell”. My question is why would any sane person keep those letters?! It’s just a constant reminder that you got her son taken away from her.  If she does anything crazy you don’t need evidence, you already proved she was a nutcase by getting the courts to give her your child. The ghosts looked good but I don’t see their point, they had their own will, and weren’t fans of the Woman, but spent their time trying to scare Harry Potter, which was weird. You know the Woman is a bitch why pick on Potter? That’s another thing with it, it was weird seeing Potter as a dad. Wasn’t the last time we saw him he was graduating high school and flying a broom wearing a scarf?

Just remembered one of my gripes! Yeah I'm editing after I published, I'll fight you. They go out looking for the body of a boy in the marsh that was never found, and they end up finding him almost immediately. Yes he's right, they have a car and the townspeople didn't, but how did you know exactly where to look? They put up a giant cross as a memorial and it just happened to be the exact spot where the boy was trapped. I have no problem with the suspension of disbelief but that was a bit much.

What I did like was the ending. I could probably write two pages on the ending but I don’t want to spoil it for you. What’s great about it is I’ve been debating on it for a half an hour now. After finally deciding what I believe it means I love the ending. It’s probably the most macabre happy ending I have ever seen and it’s covered on all fronts. Solid movie, decent scares, ending is far and away the best part though.

6.5 Dr. Chainsaws!

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Mr. Pat's 31 Days of Halloween, established MMXI

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