Old School Horror Stuff...

Daniel Radcliffe desperately needs a change of fortune and I pray it happens soon. After 8 Harry Potter fantasies and 11 years in Hollywood he has grown into a fine young man alright but despite all his dire efforts he is still under the character of Harry Potter on Screen. A very long and successful franchisee does that to you as an actor but he needs to overcome that for his own good. He tries so hard to shed his Harry Potter skin in his latest endeavour Woman in Black but the problem is he hardly looks convincing as a widower father and this basic flaw haunts this interesting plot throughout it's run time.

With Woman in Black Hollywood travels back to old school haunted stories and that really works. The story based on the novel of Susan Hill of the same name is dark and most importantly scary in parts. The story is set in a remote village in England and on the backdrop of some really great visual it looks incredibly scary. Arthur Kipps is a young lawyer who travels to a remote village to organize a recently deceased client's papers, where he discovers the ghost of a scorned woman set on vengeance. The story is simple but interestingly the screenplay is devoid of cheap jump scares and unnecessary gore. It mostly relies on the bleak backdrop and suspense to create the scare and boy it succeeds in that. To be honest after a long time I enjoyed the scare on screen.



However the film is not completely free of the clichés of a horror film. The film picks a certain height half way through it and then takes a sudden drop. Despite it's short run time the screenplay feels a little jaded in the last half. It could have been a very good horror film but the last half and a predictably bleak ending bleeds it pretty badly. The acting department is solely dependent on Radcliffe and despite of his shortcomings he looks sincere. As I have already said that he does not look old enough for the role so his certain expressions seem artificial but still his efforts are commendable.
The film heavily relies on the blunt yet beautiful cinematography and the direction is decent from James Watkins.

All in all Woman in Black is brave as atleast it tries to walk a different path. I am going with 7 out of 10 for Woman in Black, it could have been better but even though it is not it is still a good watch.