Review of The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (2014) by Jesse O — 16 May 2015

This is what you get when you keep building and building and building and building to something that you then don't pay off on. This isn't a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, it's actually got great and chilling atmosphere that would have, if the film felt inclined to do so, led to some good scares.

That's IF the film felt inclined to do so. For some reason, it just held back on everything. There were bits and pieces here and there, and some jump scares, one of which I'd actually say was pretty good since it wasn't just one and done, they actually built to it by repeating the same scene three times, I believe, in the film before actually springing it on you.

If you're gonna do a jump scare then that, at least, is actually a pretty clever way of going about it. Part of the problem was, and this may have just been the setting on my TV, but everything was just too dark too see.

It was so bad that I honestly some times couldn't see some of the 'scares', or attempts at them, and I had to rewind the film and squint very hard in order to make out 'oh yea, that's a hand.

' Again, I've no idea if it was just that the brightness setting on my TV was too low. I doubt that because I've seen many movies on that TV, different from the TV I usually watch movies on, and I've never had any problems until now, so it may have been the movie.

The film itself tries to tell a story and I was simply just not invested, or interested, in it. I think it puts the story above the scares themselves. This is an admirable goal, honestly. Too many horror films rely on cliched tropes and generic characters in order to get their stories across.

With that said, I can't say that this film was exactly the most unique of horror stories ever told, but at least it tries. With that said, as I mentioned earlier, it's not like the story itself is actually interesting enough to make you overlook its obvious lack of scares.

The Babadook put its own characters and stories above the horror, but, wouldn't you know it, the story actually feeds the horror and adds to it, it doesn't detract from it. It wasn't two completely separate things.

Of course the story plays into the horror in this film but it does feel like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. It just doesn't mix well. I get what they were going for here but it was just a big letdown, particularly when compared to the first movie which was actually pretty damn good all things considered.

It didn't have to be a repeat of that, and it wasn't a repeat of that, but it just needed a whole lot more scares and less talking. There's just too much talking here and it is a shame. I was actually kind of looking forward to this film, in spite of the negative reviews, and I just didn't like it.

Not terrible but not what I would call a good horror movie. If you want a good scare then you definitely won't get it here.