The Lady In Black

My friend Cortney gave it meh out of meh stars. I agree that it was a solid 3 out of six. The problem with the movie is that it could of been better. Oh so much better. But it instead decided to be average. I suspect that its averageness was forced upon it by some uncaring producer who wanted to make some quick mega bucks but I have no real way of supporting that opinion so I am just left with my consipracy theories.

In many ways the movie itself isn't really worth writing about and at the same time it is because it felt almost like it was being haunted by the better version of itself. You could see it, pounding frantically against the corner of the movie, in all of its vast empty spaces doing its absolute best to escape before being thrust back into the eternal purgatory of hollywood mediocrity.

See if there is one thing I love it is big creepy house movies. There is just something so traditional about it that the whole movie could of and should of been an omage to all that have come before. Best of all this movie happened in the victorian times so the set was lit by candles and lanterns which is ever so much better than a bunch of assholes running around with flashlights and it always will be. This is one thing the movie got right. The whole thing movie has an atmosphere of dread to it. Not just the house but also the town, which is arguably more creepy than the house itself. The combination of these two setting elements gives the movie a prevading sense of dread and the desire to find out what is behind that dread. The problem is that instead of paciently cultivating that dread and exploring that mystery they decided to have loud sudden sounds and sudden visual imagry which can be effective in moderation but jesus god people give it a rest. Also when you do a loud shocking thing like that it functions like a reset. Once you are traumatized the sense of dread disapates and needs to be rebuilt. Unfortunatly the movie doesn't really get a chance to do that as it is far to busy running around using scary sounds and crappy camera angles. As a result it really missed the opertunity to develop its interesting story.

The movie could of been easily made so that you would of sided with the ghost. I think they should of done that. Some of the most interesting parts of the movie is watching Harry Potter unravel the details behind what happened at the house and whatnot. Now one person I saw it with said that it would of been better if there was some sort of thing where the ghost was being framed and that she was a good woman who had her son taken away. I think it would of been better if Harry Potter THOUGHT that there was something more malevolent going on and it turned out that she really was crazy. That would of made the ending a lot more poignant.

The other theme that movie totally fucked up is the theme of imperical rationalism vs. spiritualism. You had it EVERYWHERE in the movie but they didn't have it mean anything. Like the rich guy who is all rational and knows what is going on and his medium wife. You have harry potter who is both a lawyer, a man of laws and figures, but with his dead wife he starts looking into spirtualism more and more. So you have all these elements lying around the movie but they didn't tie them together or attach them to the plot or anything like that.

Oh well like I said if they focused on the plot more instead of fucking around with loud stupid noises it would of been ever so much better.