Typical atmospheric horror, without anything truly great in it.

Rating: 5/10 (19 February 2012)

This movie turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. It was being far too formulaic with its approach and story and it was lacking any true great creativity or originality. It besides is even a lackluster one, with only just a couple of false scares in jump scares in it, that really shouldn't surprise any of the horror fans out there.
I really don't like it when a horror movie gets stretched out, by not telling you anything, for the longest time. The viewers are being left in dark for too long by its mystery. You have no idea what is going on or at what direction the movie is going with its story. In my opinion this all is just a lame excuse and a cheap way for the movie to be filled with as many jumps scares as possible, before finally revealing its twist and reveal what its mystery was all supposed to be about.
And when the movie finally reached that point, I had already lost interest in it. I just wasn't taken at all by its story, or any of its characters. Perhaps if the movie had some more excitement and originality in it, it could had still interested me and that way I could had also enjoyed this movie more for what it was; a typical atmospheric ghost-story.
The movie now instead came across to me as all buildup but without a decent enough payoff to any of its buildup. It really all makes "The Woman in Black" a disappointing watch.
It's also sadly miscast. I'm not saying that Daniel Radcliffe is a bad actor but he was obviously not the right choice for his role in this movie. He's far too young to play a convincing enough widower, with a young son. It just doesn't feel and look right, seeing him interacting with other adults, that treat him as equals, while they are obviously all, at the very least, twice his age. It worked far too distracting for me and often took me out of the movie, especially when he's doing scenes together with Ciarán Hinds.
Now, the only thing that does make this movie somewhat watchable is its good and dark atmosphere. It's a good horror atmosphere really and it also still handles some of its horror well. I only did wish that the overall movie was a bit more exciting and original, that way I would had liked this movie far better.
Really a horror you can easily skip on.
5/10
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