Two sides of the same horror coin open this weekend; The Woman in Black and The Innkeepers. The former is a new adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel of the same name, the latter is the much hyped – amongst horror aficionados at least – follow-up effort of writer/director Ti West's picture The House of the Devil, which earned much acclaim in 2009. Each film centers on an age-old horror trope; the haunted house.
The Woman in Black is the more old-fashioned of the pair. The movie takes place in a small English village at least a century ago and stars Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps, a man who has lost his wife during childbirth and now struggles to raise his young boy. About to lose his law-firm job, Arthur agrees to take over the case of a recently deceased woman in a seaside town. It’s very basic stuff; primarily picking through the paperwork and estate affairs at a large manor. When Arthur comes to town he finds the locals not merely unwilling to help, but actively shooing him out of town. Apparently there is a woman, who indeed wears black, roaming the home’s grounds, with a trail of freshly dead bodies piling up with every sighting. Nevertheless, Mr. Kipps is determined to do his duty.
The picture is stately, though not particularly quiet. Its mustiness is part of its charm.
On the opposite of end of this tale is The Innkeepers. West’s movie is about two employees of the Yankee Pedlar Inn, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy). This old northeastern inn has famously been host to a ghost, one that Claire and Luke are hoping to capture on film. There are a couple of other plots hanging around West’s playground, but it’s really about two people looking for something supernatural.
As one would expect, despite coming from different directions, The Woman in Black and The Innkeepers eventually meet in the middle. The leads wander around in the dark, things loudly go bump in the night and there are some ladies in veils staring with anger. The longer everyone insists on staying put, the freakier things get, with the truly creepiest windup toys ever clicking relentlessly in Black and undead naked guys sneaking around Innkeepers.
Purely on memorable images, both films succeed. In fact, as a whole they are each a success, if minor ones. If the point of a comedy is to make you laugh, and you end up chuckling ten times, it’s not a failure. As such, when a horror movie gives you the heebie-jeebies, one has to give credit. The Innkeepers is the better paced of the two films. While West’s leisurely style is divisive, it does an impressive job of setting the mood. With long takes and almost agonizing stretches of silence, West conjures a true sense of reality and that honest unnerving feeling one gets when wandering around in the black of night. His injection of humor is a mixed-bag. At times, it increases the casual atmosphere of the movie, with two friends genuinely fascinated by ghosts and goblins sharing a natural banter that is never too-clever or Hollywood. However, the levity occasionally goes too far and undercuts the mood with goofy gags, particularly Paxton’s mugging as the curious Claire.
If The Woman in Black is the slower, at times gangly commodity, it’s also the one with more frightening images. Black’s director James Watkins (Eden Lake) produces several extremely eerie moments. The first features Radcliffe’s Arthur looking out a window and seeing a person slowly rising from a muddy marsh, with his clear destination being the front door. The second is brought together over a few minutes, with Arthur hearing an ominous creaking noise upstairs. After struggling to open the locked door that hides the sound, Arthur heads back downstairs to get an axe, where upon his return the entryway is wide open. It’s simple and horrifically effective.
Neither movie can be recommended as an outright gem or a must-see this weekend. If you’ve got an itch for spooks though, each option will suffice.
The Innkeepers and The Woman in Black open in Seattle today.
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