directed by James Watkins (2012)
The opening scene of the movie has three little girls playing tea party then leaping to their deaths. My immediate reaction? Fuck you movie! And that's not the only fuck you reaction it got from me because this gothic ghost story is package delivery of child death, and it wraps that tragedy right up tight to the end. Once more, FU movie! I avoided articles on the film, and trailers after I caught the first one, besides it didn't give away much, just that there was some shady lady in black and Harry Potter was going to her spooky house, so the film's subject matter surprised me.
Perhaps I should have seen it coming, but I didn't and that's okay I guess. I like scary movies, but I hates when horror flicks utilise the child in danger trope. It's so cheap and exploitive to milk that scenario. It works though, because who the hell can remain stoic in the face of that? Someone fronting, or someone with a heart of stone, a grinch heart maybes.
It's well done. The acting is good, the setting is eerie, the house in the middle of a tideland oasis is spectacular, even if it's a set or CGI or whatever, cudos on the spooktacular atmosphere. They got the Edwardian period details down and it's a total creepshow, with tons of jump scares. I counted 8 that gave me a start and a flinch, with 2 that actually made me give a little shriek. There was scattered laughter throughout the theatre after most all of them. Tension relief and all, but the laughs died out, as the scares came fast and furious when the story escalated in the third act toward the resolution. It was pretty satisfying spook flick overall.
Even though this is being marketed as Daniel Radcliffe's first adult/non Harry Potter role, I couldn't help but think of him as Harry. It even has the look and feel of a Potter flick some, with the supernatural elements and the toff's house with the eccentric posh lady and her mad behaviours that the non-Harry, junior lawyer/clerk character Radcliffe is playing, gamely tolerates - even down to the same mannerisms he used for Harry Potter. Plus it's got a magical problem Radcliffe is bent on solving, and when Radcliffe does battle with the spooks, I wanted him to pull out his wand and splat them with an expelioramus!, or whatever magical Latinesque gibberish does the trick.
I dunno what to say about the end. It was awful, and romantic both, so I have to commend the writer of the book Susan Hill, or maybe it's the one what did the screenplay adaptation, Jane Goldman, whichever is responsible - Good job! It's not easy to pull off summat that gives you chills yet your kinda happy about, because even though it was terrible, yeah, it was a happy ending.
It was also made into a movie in 1988, which you can see on youtube.
Another Harry Potter connection - Adrian Rawlins, who played James Potter, Harry's dad in the Potter flicks, does the same character as Daniel Radcliffe in the 1988 version.
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