Ah, January. Hollywood's dumping grounds of piss. It's the perfect time to either avoid the theaters entirely for a few months or catch up on the last few Oscar-worth movies that came out near the end of the year (Go see Foxcatcher). January is notorious for releasing unfunny comedies, unscary horror, and decent Liam Neeson films. Finding a good movie released in January is, most times, a difficult feat. So, I was not surprised to find The Woman In Black 2 to be the first movie to hit the marquee in 2015, especially without Harry Potter starring in it. To my surprise, while it is a very bland movie that doesn't really expand the mythology of the first film, it's not that terrible either. It's toast with butter. That's it.
So, it's in England and the war is happening in the 40s and there's this lady who takes a group of children out of England for fear they'll be killed in German bombing and she takes them to the estate of the first movie. (I actually quite enjoyed the first film, but it's been a few years since I've seen it, I don't actually remember a whole lot about it.) There, one of the children sees The Woman in Black... which releases her. I'm not sure how seeing her releases her. Wouldn't she already be released if she was seen...? Anyway, that's not important. So, after this happens she starts preying on the orphans and killing them one by one (I was actually surprised this movie had the balls to kill off multiple kids... that actually impressed me a little bit). Then, one of the kids gets possessed and the lady has to save him. There isn't a whole hell of a lot of plot going on here, but that's not really the point of a January horror film, is it?
Here's what The Woman in Black 2 does really well-- disguises poor acting well with British accents, and jump-scares the crap out of you. It has mastered the jump scare. You can be expecting it-- BOOM-- something pops out. You could be relaxing from the last jump scare-- BOOM-- another one. They throw out jump scares like they're Tyler Perry movies in February. Yes, they're cheap scares, but they're effective if that's what you're looking for. You're not scared of anything going on in the movie, you're nervous you're going to audibly shout next to your significant other again. It's like going to any of the Halloween mazes at amusement parks. You enter the maze scared because you now something is going to jump out at you. You're not worried that you're actually going to be killed. You don't feel like you're in any actual danger and you're not going to have nightmares about the actors in rubber masks with pennies in tin cans. It's a quick BOO! and it's over and forgotten. That's how this movie is. My suggestion is that if you want to see an actual scary movie, one that will frighten you down to your very core and stay with you for days after... see The Babadook.
But, it could've been a lot worse. At least it isn't stupid. There is little story, but what little story there is was told in a coherent way. There isn't great acting, but they've got British accents so there's no real complaint here. And the director really knows how to jump scare. He's got a niche and he sticks with it, which is respectable. It's only real value is if you want to take your girlfriend or boyfriend who has a history of being very easily scared, and watch them clutch your arm and jump out of their seat and scream bloody murder... it's actually even more entertaining than the movie. As for a January release, especially a horror movie released in January, it should've been a lot more awful than it was, and I've certainly sat through a lot worse... it wasn't bad. But it wasn't great either.
C
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