Ask and you shall receive!
I have one question about the outcome. Does it mean that Arthur and his wife and child will be haunting the place, same as the other victims of the Woman in Black?
Okay, one more question. If the WiB isn’t confined to Eel Marsh and could be seen anywhere, and those parents knew she could pop up anywhere, why didn’t they leave?
OK, so Harry Potter reunited the mother and son. But, the Woman in Black is a bitch and still isn’t satisfied? “Never forgive” and all that. Am I missing anything here? Does she decide to kill the kid out of pure spite? What’s the difference between Harry and his son getting killed than all the other ones? Presumably the walking off into the sunset reunited is supposed to be some kind of happyish ending but does that mean Harry’s little son won’t be walking around haunting the town?
Why is the Woman in Black so pissed off at the townspeople? From what I gather she was either insane and her sister took her son from her justly or she’s innocent and her sister is a child stealing twat. If the issue is the former, then I guess her going off and killing a bunch of innocent children of a bunch of innocent townspeople makes sense. If we’re supposed to empathize with her I’m stumped, since I couldn’t come up with any reason why the townspeople are at fault.
Why was Aberforth on the train waiting for Harry? Was that supposed to be coincidence and he’s just a nice helpful rich dude? Did he know he was coming? If he did, why does he choose to help him? Because he thinks in doing so he’ll somehow help the town? Does he just want the house sold in order to put the past behind them and break the superstition? Seems pretty thin to me.
Maybe I missed it, but what happened to the sister? Are we supposed to assume that she just died of natural causes before the start of the movie? Presumably she only died recently because Harry is just now getting sent up there. How old would she have been, I don’t recall how long the Woman in Black had been haunting the town. If she did just die, was she living in that haunted house the entire time oblivious or indifferent to all the weird shit?
What was the point of the zombie kids? It’s not like they really did anything except look creepy.
What are we supposed to take from the scene in the house during the reuniting? The Woman in Black gets all riled up and rushes at Harry screaming. But, there’s no effect on Harry at all. He gets scared but is unharmed. Was she angry that his unearthed the sons body? Was Harry’s guess right? There’s a chanting in the house that sounded like “Never Forgive” which I assume means Harry guessed right but it doesn’t matter, she’s still gonna be a pissy bitch.
What grudge does she have against Harry? Is it just that he was in her house? If the anger is centered on the tacit kidnapping and death and subsequent indifference of the townspeople to both why would she want to punish Harry? He wasn’t part of that crime. All he did was see her and go in the house. This ghost’s motivations are thin and inconsistent at best.
I have a lot of questions. I think I liked the movie, but the movie strikes me as a bit too simplistic to have a nonsensical plot.
Well, in the book she killed the kid but the dad survived. Remember, she was insane even before she died, so the logical and reasonable solution might not have made sense to her.
Also, if one of your children were taken, and you got his corpse back 50 years later, would YOU be happy about that?
They knew about the injustice at Eel Marsh House and said nothing about, did nothing about it.
Yes, of old age, so assume about 50 years of evil lonely old bat + crazy ghost in Eel Marsh House, terrified villagers losing children on the mainland.
Well, unless by “unharmed” you mean “run over by a train within 24 hours.” Think “cursed to die violently” as opposed to something more direct.
Why are you calling him Harry? Harry Potter would have dealt with the situation with a patronus charm. This character was called Arthur and is entirely unrelated. Are you trying to be funny, to make some critical comment about the acting, or something else? People do this all the time but I don’t understand why. Anyway, yes, I think it’s just that he invaded her space. Once he was on her radar, his child was doomed, anyway.
That was my thought too. Arthur Kipps (to use his real name) hatches the plan to dig the kid’s body out of the marsh and put it in his mother’s grave. My reaction was, what makes him think that’s going to make the vengeful ghost happy?
As far as I could tell, Mr. Daily (rich guy on train who makes friends with Arthur Kipps) just happened to be on the train. He helped Arthur Kipps because that’s what normal people do. He lives in an isolated neighbourhood with not a lot of people of his social class around, so when a person like that shows up, you give him a ride in your car and invite him in your house. From reading period novels, rich people have a lot of extra room and invite people to their house as a matter of course. Mr. Daily didn’t really believe all that ghost mumbo jumbo, or else was trying to persuade himself that he didn’t believe it.
I forgot my question: I can’t remember now what happened to the dog that Mr. Daily loaned Arthur Kipps when Arthur Kipps spent the night. Nothing bad, right? I guess the dog just went back to his home the next morning when Arthur Kipps / Mr. Daily left the house
Back then, not getting a proper burial was kind of a big deal. And while Arthur couldn’t do anything to bring the woman’s son back to life, he could at least find the child’s remains and attempt to reunite them in the afterlife.
Made the ending a bit tragic: the WIB watching Arthur and his son reunite with his wife, while the WIB herself never reunited with the spirit of her son. I think the film implied that she could not reunite with her son because she was so consumed with her anger and she could not let go of the injustices done to her.
How different was the play, and the earlier movie? Were they closer to the book?
Because this movie didn’t make a lot of sense. There was no trigger for the woman to appear. She just showed up, whenever she felt like it. So why were there any children left at all, after so many years? Or even young adults?
Why was she bothering to try to scare Arthur? Why did she lock Sam in that room? Nothing happened to him or to Arthur while he was in there.
It’s questions like that that make me really unsure if I can like this movie.
My review of the movie can be summed up thusly;
You have seen Woman in Black. She loves to stand at the door to say “Boo!” /Niska
I mainly wanted to see it so I could see Daniel Radcliffe in a different role than Harry Potter. Although the movie itself was a simple BOO SCARE YOU movie his acting was really good.
Aw, give it a go.
To be fair, my questions didn’t arise until I left the theater. The movie held my attention, mostly because of Radcliffe’s performance. The biggest disappointment is that it’s not gonna be worth getting the DVD. There’s no reason to watch a second time, which is the hallmark of a really good movie, IMHO.
I saw it and have the same issue as you. I was mostly entertained by it but I was pretty underwhelmed by the ending and upon walking out of the theater and starting to think through questions I found that it was actually pretty thin and frustrating. I’m not sure if I can like a movie that was merely a inoffensive distraction for 2 hours. I didn’t hate it, but in the end it’s just completely forgettable.
My guesses, if you want to make up logical explanations:
They do mention in the movie that she only kills children after someone sees her. Which is why all the townfolk were trying to prevent Arthur Kipps from going to the old house.
WAG - because he was in her old house and she didn’t like people trespassing?
Because that’s what ghosts do, scare the crap out of people. It relieves the monotony.
I really liked the movie. Sure, it’s a bunch of other books and movies thrown into a blender and served cold, but I like chocolate milkshakes too. I mean, come on, EEL MARSH HOUSE! Who the fuck would build that monstrosity in the middle of a friggin marsh filled with eels? That you have no way to get in or out when the tide is high? And if you are told to go to Ell Marsh House and find a dead woman’s paper work or you lose your job? GET ANOTHER JOB! You have a law degree! You’re supposed to be smart! Set the place on fire and get the fuck out of there!
Or course, since the movie made me scream, in my head, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE, means that the movie works.
Except that people don’t see her and she still shows up, like she did in that first scene with the three little girls. They were minding their own business.
She should have been restricted to Eel Marsh House until something disturbed her, like Arthur’s visit. Then I’d understand the townspeople wanting to keep Arthur away. But they knew it didn’t make any difference. She popped up whenever she felt like it.
Zebra, I did wonder why Arthur didn’t just gather up all the papers and take them back to London.
We don’t know that. We don’t know when the scene with the little girls at the beginning (jumping out the window) happened. It could’ve been right after a sighting of (eerie music plays) The Woman in Black! (lightning flash)
He would’ve loved to get another job, but there was a recession and he was upside down on his mortgage due to predatory lender practices. Plus his current boss probably wouldn’t have given him a good reference.
To be fair, there was a ton of papers in that old house. Maybe he was just trying to gather the important ones and bring those back to London.
Oh, and quoting myself from the other recent thread on the movie:
I want to give mad props to Arthur Kipps / Daniel Radcliffe / Harry Potter. You’re stuck in an old abandoned house surrounded by the sea with no one else around, all the locals make the hex sign when you tell them you want to go there. But when you look out the window and see a dark shadowy figure in the cemetery that disappears in the blink of an eye, you run out and yell “who’s there?”
When there’s a loud pounding noise in the middle of the night in one of the upstairs rooms, what do you do? Why, grab an axe and a candle and go check it out!
Oh, good point. Maybe the three little girls was fairly recent. It might explain why the innkeeper let Arthur’s boss reserve a room – then the girls die – and the innkeeper figures she’s back, so he tells Arthur there’s no room for him.
Maybe the other lawyer saw her – Jerome? He tried to give Arthur some papers, so he’d probably been to the (lightning flash) house.
And besides Jerome, someone had to bury the recently deceased Alice Drablow, presumably at the graveyard at Eel Marsh House. I don’t think it’s too difficult to explain why WIB is suddenly showing up again at the beginning of the movie.
At least he grabbed a weapon (not that it would do much good). That’s more than most horror movie characters do.
He only got the axe after the door was locked. He went back and got the axe and then came back and the door was open.