I told myself when I rented this movie that I wouldn’t call dude Harry Potter the entire time. I know it must be annoying when you’re famous for one character and it follows you around the rest of your life. The only people who can pull it off well is Mr. T and Chuck Norris. And it’s no coincidence that both people can kick your ass from here till Tuesdays with Morrie.

With that said, The Woman in Black.

Bought to you by Hammer Films, a very famous movie studio that made a SHIT TON of movies back in the day, including all those weird Dracula movies from the ’70s that had Christopher Lee dancing to disco wearing fangs or something. I dunno, I never seen them to be honest. But anyway, Hammer makes more gothic looking films rather than splatterfests so most of today’s audience will probably yell out “BORING!! DO THE AVADOUS SPELL HARRY!!!” (I purposely fucked that up to piss off Nick Jobe, and now he’s gonna tell me what that joke really should say.)

Ok so the movie. Harry Potter is a lawyer who works for a law firm and it’s the 1800′s when people said things like “fancy” and “dapper chap”. Harry Potter must be a shitty lawyer cause he can’t pay his bills and bill collectors are after him. He has a kid and nanny, which honestly I think costs a lot of money. He should just sell both and be a somewhat successful lawyer. What? Don’t give me that look, it was the 1800′s. They sold babies in the 1800′s.

Anyway, the law firm he works for is in possession of a house that belonged to some crazy lady who killed herself and they’re having a hard time selling it because of ghosts or some shit. And it’s up to Harry Potter to sell it! Or bust the ghosts. Or possibly both.

So he travels to this town on train and it takes roughly 15 weeks cause trains were slower then. While on the train he meets a dapper chap who is also heading to the town Harry Potter’s going to. Once he arrives, he finds out he’s not quite welcomed there and is forced to sleep in an attic. The next day, he goes to look at the house but people in town don’t seem to want him there for some reason. Oddly enough, it’s never said what everyone’s problem was with Harry Potter at this point in the movie. They explain later why they don’t like him but that happens later, so I just didn’t get this.

So Harry Potter goes to the creepy house, which is on some island far away and at times the road to the island is underwater thanks to a current or tide or whatever so he has to stay there for awhile, which is fine because he doesn’t believe in ghosts. (I almost said a line from The Wizard of Oz but it would’ve came off as racist so nevermind.) While roaming around the house, things kinda watch him, things move, and Harry swears he sees someone outside. When he investigates, he finds nothing. So what’s up with this house?

It’s a bit confusing so follow me. This woman was married to some dude and they had a kid. One day the dude and the kid went out riding in a horse buggy and they got sad or something and started sinking into the Swamp of Dispair. Somehow the dude survives but this pisses off the woman so she gets angry, kills the dude, then hangs herself. Or…something like that. The entire thing is told in fragments and part of it is from the ghosts point of view. So whatever.

TL;DR Version: a dead chick haunts the house and she’s pissed. She hates kids and wants kids in the town to die just like her kid died. So kids in the town start dying and they blame Harry Potter because he saw The Woman in Black, which makes sense why they wouldn’t care for him at this point, but earlier? I dunno. Anyway, the dapper chap from earlier offers his house to Harry Potter and he accepts. Harry Potter meets the dude’s crazy as fuck wife who thinks two dogs are his children and wants to get to the bottom of this.

The best part of the whole movie is the last act, when Harry Potter wants to spend the night in the house and the ghosts just kinda fuck with him. It gets creepy and atmospheric which helped build suspense. Harry Potter figures out that if he reunites the ghost with the dead body of the kid, the woman in black will stop killing. Then the most laughable thing happens.

Ok, so Dapper Chap is the first person in this town to buy and own a car, and it’s literally the first car EVER. They use it to go to the house, get to the Swamp of Despair, and using THE FIRST CAR EVER MADE tie a rope to the bumper and pull out the HEAVY AS SHIT carriage that’s been in tar and/or mud for lord only knows how long WITH THE CAR JUST BURSTING INTO FLAME! I never laughed so hard in my life. But it works and they find the body and carry it back to the house, where the ghost reunites with the kid and Harry Potter goes “Oh fuck I forgot I had a kid! Well, let’s set up the MOST OBVIOUS TWIST ENDING EVER!!!”

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

Harry Potter meets up with his kid at the train station but of course the woman in black shows up and kills the kid because, well, she’s a fucking bitch. THE END!

Overall, this movie isn’t bad. It’s a good throwback to older horror and people who can appreciate that type of horror will like it. Clearly, it wasn’t made for stupid ass teenagers who watch PG-13 horror films cause they wouldn’t have the patience for this movie. There isn’t much gore, its slow as fuck, and it’s more about “oh god this is creepy” than “OH MY GOD BLOOD EVERYWHERE!! I MUST TWEET THIS!” And I do apologize for calling him Harry Potter.

I just don’t know what his character’s name in Equus was.

♥♥♥

-Jason