RATING- PG-13
RUN TIME- 95 MINS
WRITERS- SUSAN HILL AND JANE GOLDMAN
STARRING- DANIEL RADCIFFE, JANET McTEER AND CIARAN HINDS
DIRECTOR- JAMES WATKINS
Synopsis taken from IMDb
In London, lawyer Arthur Kipps still grieves the death of his beloved wife Stella on the delivery of their son Joseph four years ago. His employer gives him a last chance to keep his job, and he is assigned to travel to the remote village of Cryphin Gifford to examine the documentation of the Eel Marsh house that belonged to the recently deceased Mrs. Drablow. Arthur befriends daily on the train and the man offers a ride to him to the Gifford Arms Inn. Arthur has a cold reception and the owner of the inn tells that he did not receive the request of reservation and there is no available room. The next morning, Arthur meets solicitor Jerome who advises him to return to London. However, Arthur goes to the isolated manor and soon he finds that Eel Marsh is haunted by the vengeful ghost of a woman dressed in black. He also learns that the woman lost her son drowned in the marsh and she seeks revenge, taking the children of the scared locals.
So I've been reading around and it looks like I'm not alone on this one-this movie was awesome! ESPECIALLY for PG-13!
The opening scene with the girls playing and then suddenly stopping to stare at something that we the viewer aren't shown told me that this was going to be a creepy one. Then when they jumped out the window I knew this was going to be good. And not the way you'd expect a PG-13 movie to start for sure.
As the movie unwinds and starts to pick up you're really paranoid the whole time. This woman is like Michael Myers, she comes out of nowhere so you're always looking in the background for her to be there. And because she's wearing black she blends in to the bleakness of the coloring of this film. I'm sure there are parts that happened where I didn't even know she was there, I may even go back and rewatch it just to see if I can spot something I didn't the first or 2nd time. One of my favorite parts of the movie is when Arthur is just standing by the window and you just see movement and realize she's behind him watching him. Truly chilling stuff.
And the funny thing is that this film uses some cliche's that other films have overdone, but they make it work. Like how every time Arthur goes to look out the window something happens almost every time. Yet the timing and the way it was executed worked wonders. The window scenes are some good ones. I got alot of jumps out of this movie.
Danielle Radcliffe is now trying to be taken seriously and I respect that. It's this reason alone and this movie that I'm not so upset about him being cast as the lead in Horns. I think he's heading in the right direction and I'm happy for the guy not being typecast as Harry Potter. It's got to be hard breaking those chains. His performance in this movie was exceptional and convincing. It's still weird seeing him as someone other than Harry Potter though and I'm sure he'll hear that the rest of his life.
I loved this movie and thought it was very well done. Let me remind you that I only rented this because I got a free Redbox rental, if not for that I probably wouldn't have seen it. I didn't have alot of hopes for it and I'm so glad I was so wrong. Being surprised with a good movie is a good feeling. The scenery, the acting and the direction was done with elegance. If you're looking for a good ghost or haunted house movie then you need to put this on your list ASAP.
I still have yet to see the original but I'll be watching that soon now. I hope it lives up to this one.
THIS FILM GETS 3 OUT OF 4 REAPERS
