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I ♥ LA
I'm in SoCal. It was 79 freakin degrees when I landed, WOOT. And it's supposed to get into the 80s. OMG so different from Seattle, which was at least sunny the day I left, but cold, so cold (and rainy and windy in the week before).
Before we left, my mom and I went to see The Woman in Black, because she looooooves horror films and I had just read the book. I'd heard before going in that they'd changed quite a bit from the book, so I was expecting that. It wasn't surprising, because even while reading the book I had no idea how they were going to turn it into a movie, when it was so short and much of it was establishing mood. All the stuff they added to make it scarier or whatever, I didn't actually have much of a problem with. They kind of had to, and some of it was an improvement over the book. However, I hated the ending. And by ending I mean like the whole last 20 minutes or so; the whole 'resolution' part of the movie.
OK so -- in the book, Arthur Kipps doesn't die at the end. He also doesn't have a kid. And this isn't the wife he has. So all that, like I said, I can forgive, because they felt they needed to change pretty much all the details. But his dying is so. lame. Particularly because it's almost like the WiB did him/his family a favor, by reuniting them. You can almost even see a little smile play on her lips (or maybe that's just me). But anyway, the fact that the Kipps family got to be together again is a much happier resolution than the WiB should be given credit for. She is an evil, evil, malevolent spirit, and the idea that she did anyone any favors is just totally wrong, goes so against the book that that part really bothers me. Because that's really the part of the book that I feel you can't and shouldn't mess with -- how evil and vindictive she is -- because that's what makes her frightening. If you take that away, the whole foundation of the story falls apart.
Anyway, in the book, the Arthur we meet initially is already an old man, in his 60s. The events regarding the WiB do take place in his 20s, so I was fine with them skipping the whole prologue of him being an old man. However, we learn from that that he's living with his second wife and her four kids from a previous marriage. They don't have kids themselves and no child is mentioned from a previous marriage of his. His first wife, Stella, doesn't die in child birth. She dies at the end of the book with their son, when the WiB appears and frightens the horse that's pulling the cart the two of them are riding in. Arthur doesn't die; he continues on and eventually marries again, as we know from the beginning of the book.
Arthur is super badly scarred by the events of both Eel Marsh House and the subsequent deaths of his wife and son. He remembers the WiB with total and utter horror; it's something that he's hidden away in his mind and from others but it's never really left him. That's the other thing that bothered me about the movie; I don't know whether it was the way Daniel Radcliffe acted or the way it was written, but his Arthur didn't really seem frightened at all. He was less startled than we, the audience were, by the loud noises and strange happenings. And seriously, when the super creepy shit started happening and the WiB appeared, he seemed perturbed but not frightened out of his wits, which the Arthur in the book definitely was and which I'm sure I would be if that happened to me. See, Arthur in the book doesn't continue on to Eel Marsh House because he's in trouble with his law firm, as portrayed in the movie; he does it because after being frightened out of his wits the first day he's there, he gains a false sense of bravado and is determined to 'logic' his way out of it. Only, of course, that doesn't happen.
Also, in the book, Samuel Daily's wife isn't crazy, the innkeeper doesn't try to turn Arthur away, there are NO actual deaths that happen in town while he's there; all that happened in the past before he even got there. His sighting of the WiB affects only himself; the curse is true, it's just that the child who dies because of it is his own.
The other thing that was really lame and bothersome is that Arthur does not attempt to 'fix' things by reuniting Jennet with the corpse of her son. That was like, something I felt they'd thrown in because that's what they always do in horror movies. -.- So I really didn't like that either.
Yeah. QUITE, quite different from the movie, and all generally OK except for the stupid ending, starting from when movie!Arthur gets it into his head to reunite Jennet/Nathaniel; from that point on it just became trite, typical horror movie fodder.
When we were in line for tickets, there was some lame guy behind us explaining the general premise of every available movie to his companion. That wasn't why he was lame. The reason he was lame was because I overheard the following: "Oh, The Women in Black. Yeah. That's based on memoirs. From World War II. It's about the soldiers' widows." Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wut? I mean, I guess I applaud his imagination and bullshitting skills (though it was based on a title that he got wrong)? But seriously dude, IF YOU DON'T KNOW, DON'T MAKE SHIT UP. :))
Before we left, my mom and I went to see The Woman in Black, because she looooooves horror films and I had just read the book. I'd heard before going in that they'd changed quite a bit from the book, so I was expecting that. It wasn't surprising, because even while reading the book I had no idea how they were going to turn it into a movie, when it was so short and much of it was establishing mood. All the stuff they added to make it scarier or whatever, I didn't actually have much of a problem with. They kind of had to, and some of it was an improvement over the book. However, I hated the ending. And by ending I mean like the whole last 20 minutes or so; the whole 'resolution' part of the movie.
OK so -- in the book, Arthur Kipps doesn't die at the end. He also doesn't have a kid. And this isn't the wife he has. So all that, like I said, I can forgive, because they felt they needed to change pretty much all the details. But his dying is so. lame. Particularly because it's almost like the WiB did him/his family a favor, by reuniting them. You can almost even see a little smile play on her lips (or maybe that's just me). But anyway, the fact that the Kipps family got to be together again is a much happier resolution than the WiB should be given credit for. She is an evil, evil, malevolent spirit, and the idea that she did anyone any favors is just totally wrong, goes so against the book that that part really bothers me. Because that's really the part of the book that I feel you can't and shouldn't mess with -- how evil and vindictive she is -- because that's what makes her frightening. If you take that away, the whole foundation of the story falls apart.
Anyway, in the book, the Arthur we meet initially is already an old man, in his 60s. The events regarding the WiB do take place in his 20s, so I was fine with them skipping the whole prologue of him being an old man. However, we learn from that that he's living with his second wife and her four kids from a previous marriage. They don't have kids themselves and no child is mentioned from a previous marriage of his. His first wife, Stella, doesn't die in child birth. She dies at the end of the book with their son, when the WiB appears and frightens the horse that's pulling the cart the two of them are riding in. Arthur doesn't die; he continues on and eventually marries again, as we know from the beginning of the book.
Arthur is super badly scarred by the events of both Eel Marsh House and the subsequent deaths of his wife and son. He remembers the WiB with total and utter horror; it's something that he's hidden away in his mind and from others but it's never really left him. That's the other thing that bothered me about the movie; I don't know whether it was the way Daniel Radcliffe acted or the way it was written, but his Arthur didn't really seem frightened at all. He was less startled than we, the audience were, by the loud noises and strange happenings. And seriously, when the super creepy shit started happening and the WiB appeared, he seemed perturbed but not frightened out of his wits, which the Arthur in the book definitely was and which I'm sure I would be if that happened to me. See, Arthur in the book doesn't continue on to Eel Marsh House because he's in trouble with his law firm, as portrayed in the movie; he does it because after being frightened out of his wits the first day he's there, he gains a false sense of bravado and is determined to 'logic' his way out of it. Only, of course, that doesn't happen.
Also, in the book, Samuel Daily's wife isn't crazy, the innkeeper doesn't try to turn Arthur away, there are NO actual deaths that happen in town while he's there; all that happened in the past before he even got there. His sighting of the WiB affects only himself; the curse is true, it's just that the child who dies because of it is his own.
The other thing that was really lame and bothersome is that Arthur does not attempt to 'fix' things by reuniting Jennet with the corpse of her son. That was like, something I felt they'd thrown in because that's what they always do in horror movies. -.- So I really didn't like that either.
Yeah. QUITE, quite different from the movie, and all generally OK except for the stupid ending, starting from when movie!Arthur gets it into his head to reunite Jennet/Nathaniel; from that point on it just became trite, typical horror movie fodder.
When we were in line for tickets, there was some lame guy behind us explaining the general premise of every available movie to his companion. That wasn't why he was lame. The reason he was lame was because I overheard the following: "Oh, The Women in Black. Yeah. That's based on memoirs. From World War II. It's about the soldiers' widows." Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wut? I mean, I guess I applaud his imagination and bullshitting skills (though it was based on a title that he got wrong)? But seriously dude, IF YOU DON'T KNOW, DON'T MAKE SHIT UP. :))