La Dame en noir

J’ai sursauté quelques fois et eu littéralement froid dans le dos à plusieurs reprises, mais en regard de certaines attentes, j’ai le regret de constater que ça ne vaut pas le livre. Le film respecte son modèle littéraire seulement en ce qui concerne la ligne de narration centrale, parfois en ajoutant ou en retirant quelque chose. Et puis surtout, je dirais qu’il a tendance à dramatiser inutilement la souffrance des villageois et de la femme de Ciarán Hinds. Même si le livre n’était pas excessivement effrayant, je trouve qu’il avait au moins le mérite de recréer l’ambiance cotonneuse de Londres et de la campagne anglaise et sa partie finale était magistralement écrite. Maintenant, il ne me reste plus qu’à compléter le tiercé avec la version scénique au théâtre Na Fidlovačce. (12/04/2012)

C’est très bien ficelé et tout fonctionne – l’environnement, l’ambiance, le mystère. Mais côté scénario, rien de neuf sous le soleil. Et les passages effrayants s’appuient plus sur les effets sonores que sur l’image et la créativité du montage. Radcliffe paraît jeune pour son personnage de père, mais sa performance est impeccable. Ciarán Hinds donne une touche de dignité à l’ensemble. Les jeunes fans de Harry Potter qui n’ont pas déjà vu une centaine de films similaires seront satisfaits. (21/02/2012)

The Woman in Black is a great atmospheric horror film taking place in an absolutely amazing location, with great actors and awesome directing that made sure there was just the right creepy atmosphere that gave me chills for hours after watching it. I immediately forgot about Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter. In this movie I perceived him as a great actor who can play many emotions, including fear. Truth be told, if I were him, 20 minutes in that haunted house would make me go crazy, but he fought it off and pulled it off amazingly. The screenplay is great as well. These ghost horror movies usually don’t get good endings, but in this one everything is very interesting. Hats off. The movie brought me a four-star experience and memories that I just can’t get out of my head. I wish there were more films of this quality. (15/10/2012)

James Watkins completely flipped the script when he went from aggressive teenagers to a classic art nouveau ghost story. Yet he definitely reached the heights of his reputation set by his first film because it washes over the viewer with such vigor that I wondered where the hell the man had been all these years when everyone was crying about the genre's decline. It's quite a cool thing to scare audiences so predictably yet with the kind of cheekiness and implacability in which little children die, and the mystery unravels rapidly. Meanwhile, the film maintains deliberate British detachment and slight distance. It's only kept from perfection by the miscast Radcliffe who - nothing against his performance - just hasn't grown up enough for such a role yet. Otherwise, I give a deep bow to the director. 4 ½. (08/03/2012)

A simple horror story in the beautiful settings of an English seaside village. I didn’t mind the lack of originality and the simplicity of the plot (Hammer has never made intellectual and sophisticated films), what I did mind, though, is that in such beautiful setting, all the film can do to generate fear is to use cheap jump-scares that follow the template of “show anything” + “raise the volume”. Visually, I enjoyed it very much, both the haunted house and the village, but the fear hardly shows up at all. One look at the woman in black in the more than 20 year-old TV adaptation made me tremble in terror a lot more than all those jump-scares put together. Daniel Radcliffe delivers a decent performance. The climax was disappointing, just like a couple of very unconvincing scenes (the lady with the dogs, the bird in the boarding house). I’m giving it 7/10. I liked The Woman in Black, but unfortunately, with all the aforementioned reservations. I expected something great, but it doesn’t come close to that. (24/02/2012)