Hello, and welcome back to the round table. We have another film review.
I'm David Flora. I'm the host of the Blurry Photos podcast. With
me is Derek Hayes of Monsters among Us. What's up Derek? Hello,
everybody, Thanks for having me back or whatever. I'm glad to have you
back. I'm glad to have you so enthused. Definitely. We've got Justin
Zinger from the zing This podcast. What's up? Justin? Oh? Nothing
much. I'm actually wearing all black unintentionally for this. This was not intended.
But black shirt, black pants. I'm in the mood. There you
go. He is the muscleman in black. Now we are covering the nineteen
eighty nine British television horror film The Woman in Black. Derek, you had
mentioned that you'd never heard this one before. Zinger? Is that same for
you too? Oh, I have never ever heard of this before. Then
one's hearing about it. I was like, oh, I regret knowing of
this now sort of. And Derek, what did you think on hearing this
picked? Quite honestly, I misread your text and thought we were doing the
Daniel Radcliffe version this whole time until about this morning. I think so this
whole time. I was like, oh, well, you know, it's
not what I would have picked, but it sounds like it's a good movie.
And then I learned it was the nineteen eighty nine made for television version,
and let's just say I would like my two hours back. So there
was another film version of this released in twenty twelve, and it did star
Harry Potter himself. Also Kiaran Hines, who if you are a fan of
HBO's Rome, he was Caesar. He's been in like almost everything you would
recognize him. But I couldn't find that streaming for free anywhere the time when
I picked this, so I said, let's do the nineteen eighty nine film.
And I think the other one is streaming now on Pluto TV. You
can watch it with ads, but it's free. I watched it today actually,
and now I am sad that I picked this one as well. So
white, did both of you watch The Radcliff one? Two? And I
just didn't know. I haven't seen The Radcliff. I was just sort of
looking forward to watching it. I watched the trailer for it and I was
like, oh, interesting next. Yeah, I'll talk a little bit about
that later. So this is this is, like I said, a television
horror film as directed by Herbert Wise, and the screenplay was Nigel Neil,
very British. It's based on or it's adapted from the nineteen eighty three novel
of the same name by Susan Hill. It's kind of wild that they got
a whole novel out of this story, but here you go. One of
the most interesting things about this is it premiered on Christmas Eve nineteen eighty nine,
and then they did not show it again for like five to six years,
and people were like, what was that? Because people were freaked the
f out by this picture. There is one scene in particular, I think
that did it for people. We'll get to that. Yeah, I think
I know which one you're talking about too. Where were you gonna say,
Derek, I was just gonna say, I'm trying to put myself in the
nineteen eighties mindset. You know, we hadn't seen all these crazy things at
the time. Maybe we had, It wasn't more effective then, I guess,
and that information kind of helps me, like, I know what's seen
you're talking about And Okay, freaked me out too, but mostly because my
speakers couldn't handle whatever sound they were pumping through it, and it sent like
infra sound my direction. I don't know it did something audibly that the rattles,
it rattled something. Yeah, I think you're right about putting yourself in
the mindset at the time. I mean, everybody's gathered around the fireplace and
Christmas Eve, you know, Santa's gonna come that night. The kids maybe
are in bed, but maybe they're staying up just you know, everybody's basically
on vacation. Everybody's just kind of chilling, relaxing with family, and then
this thing comes on the friggin TV and it's like, oh, well,
this looks like a fun time. Maybe we should watch it instead of you
know, Miracle on thirty fourth Street or Scrooged if they could get that on
TV at the time. I think that was like a year earlier. But
anyway, people turn this on the TV and then it's like, what are
you gonna do? Now? You're gonna be awake for the rest of the
year. So I think it is. I think it's the mindset and the
you know, people used to tell scary stories around Christmas time, around the
winter solstice. So yeah, back I was gonna stay back in the day.
That was sort of a thing, and it's referenced in what song is
that being bing Crosby um dreaming of a white Christmas maybe, where her references
UM telling ghost tales by the fire or something man that that that that that
that that that. It's in the back of my head those that file doesn't
get open for another month and a half, so I don't I can't remember
off the top of my head. One of them references scary ghost stories and
something of the Here you go, we're getting three grown men and figure this
song out. I'm not helping in this scenario, so good luck you two.
At the point being they used to tell ghost stories Christmas, I can
see that that sounds like a very Nordic thing to do, if that makes
any sense. Sure sounds Nordic. So anyways, let's let's go through the
plot a little bit. There's not a lot to it. Or on one
second, if if if if, if you don't mind, gentlemen, I
mean, if it pleases the course, if it pleases you guys, Now
you guys run your paranormal podcast. I of course have a pop culture podcast.
This is movies are more my realm. So what we do on zygnis
every time we talk about a movie is we go over the tomatoes. So
I looked up the Rotten Tomatoes for this and gentlemen, I don't know if
you did, but I would like to quiz you two on what do you
think the tomato score is the for this movie? Derek, I'm gonna go
with you first. Now I'm talking tomatoes the actual reviewers, not the audience
score. You can guess both, but I'm going with how fresh is that
tomato? I'm making some sun dried tomatoes for my sandwich or are those going
into compost? Well, let's start with a made a remake of it,
so it had to have been somewhat successful. It's stuffy and British, so
I feel like that gets it a couple of notches right there. I think
it's surprisingly high. I'm gonna say, like forty forty four percent on Rotten
Tomatoes, so that would be a certified rotten Tomato's higher than it needs to
be. Okay, David, I'm trying to put myself in the mindset of
reviewers that hopefully take into consideration the time period it came out. I'm gonna
say, sixty three percent. Okay, all right, all right. So
with that being said, gentlemen, and you dear listler one hundred percent alpha
five reviews on Rotten Tomatoes by reviewers, it's got a one hundred one hundred,
one hundred now audience score over a thousand reviews, seventy eight. So
I know now as the comparison the remake with with UM Action Superstar Daniel Radcliffe,
don't know what action movie he was in to get that title, but
UM Guns Akimbo, Swiss Army Man, Swiss Army and the Summer another UM
sixty six percent on Tomato meter for the remake, fifty four percent audience score.
So definitely apparently the remake did not what was not the critical darling that
the original was with its solid from five reviewers. So what does that tell
you? Nostalgia goes a long way when it comes to films. I think
you're right, it's kind of surprising. I feel like the newer one was
not bad. I would actually suggest people watch both just but we'll get into
that. Let me yeah, yeah, So I want to take that moment
because I said, it's always something fun to see where everyone else lied with
these and see if we're in the minority, the majority or wherever. Anyway,
it sounds like it didn't get enough eyes on it to make a competent
score. Anyways. All right, So the plot is there's a solicitor,
a London solicitor named Arthur Kidd. He goes to a coastal town because there's
an old widow who has died. She's reclusive. She lives in this estate
this man and that's out on the sand bar like it's on a little kind
of island that's only accessible when the tide is low and asked to get to.
Yeah. Yeah, it's called Eel Marsh House. So it's already you
know, it's already firing on all cylinders. Are you guys fans of Mighty
Boosh? Since we're talking about English media, are you familiar with Mighty Boush
at all? No. I've liked what I've seen, but I haven't seen
a lot. I've been a huge fan of that for a long time.
My roommate Will who worked on the film with us, David, he had
to go to London for work one time and he came back with a DVD
of The Mighty Boosh and I was just hooked from them. But anyways,
say that because there's a whole episode about eels and they're like, cockney,
Yeah that's the one. Yeah, I don't know, I know that whenever
somebody mentions eels, I can't help but think of the musical number that of
the episode. But can heels up inside? Yeah that's a good that's a
good catchy song. If you guys can find Mighty Bouche, I highly recommend
it. It is stupid, but it's pretty entertaining. Yeah, apparently streaming
on Hulu. Hey, there you go, there you go. Continue.
Sorry, it didn't mean that derail you, So that's all right. He's
the setting is nineteen twenty five and this guy, Arthur Kidd, he's kind
of a he's a lawyer that works for this firm he's trying to make partner.
But he's a little bit too friendly with the help. And that doesn't
mean sexual, that means that all the paralegals and people who work for the
lawyers he's buddies with. He treats them like human beings, and the partners
of firm don't like that. And there's this one stodgy old d bag who
is like if you want to succeed here, stop talking to the help,
like, stop being such a nice guy basically, and he's like, if
you want to further your career here, we need you to go out here
and take care of this old widow's estate, you know, out in the
middle of nowhere. I'll marsh house. And he's like, all right,
I'll do that. You know, I'm a company man. So he goes
out to he takes a train out to this place. It's a it's a
very small coastal town again, and there's not much going on. He shocks
up at a little in pub kind of place and everybody whenever he's like,
oh, I'm here from London. I'm going to administer the last will of
this old widow, everybody starts throwing him these glances, and you can tell
right away there's something going on. People are like, oh, that plays
that woman. Maybe you should like move on with your life. Maybe you
shouldn't be here. It's that classic moment in every horror film where the music
stops and everybody puts their drink down and turns and looks at him like he's
going where like you got do what? Yeh? I think there actually was
a moment when I'm not trying to jump ahead, but the one moment where
he's like, I'm gonna go back out there. The people standing behind him
when he turns, they all like act like they're not paying attention, even
though there's they're literally standing right behind him, and he saw them turn like,
oh no, wait, David, before you continue, can I point
something out I noticed throughout the film, and this is the first point that
I want to get at. It reminded me a lot of other films and
other stories, and this whole section was very Dracula to me. You know,
Barker going to Transylvania, Arker, sorry, Barker going to Transylvania to
deal with Dracula's estate and all this stuff. I think he was buying property
in England or something, if I remember right something Abby. It's been a
while since I've read it or seen the movie, but it was very Dracula
esque the way it all kind of played out. And even the scene where
he was in with the boss that you were talking about, he was talking
down to him like, don't talk to the help clean yourself up. He
had like baby vomit on his arm or something, because he has kids,
he's a family. That reminded me of the opening of Sleepy Hollow, Tim
Burton's Sleepy Hollow from nineteen ninety nine, and it made me think that it
might be inspired because it's Tim Burton. Of course he's seen this movie.
Like there's no way in hell he hasn't seen this movie like on Loop probably,
And just the way the framing of it, and the way that I
don't know the partner whoever it was talking down to our main character, the
way he communicated it was all just very Sleepy Hollow esque. Where Ichabod Crane's
at that beginning courtroom scene where he's like, I need to dissect the body.
I need to have a look and see how he was murdered, how
he was killed. And he's like, no, no, no, we're
gonna ship you up north to the scary place. You have no idea that's
in mind, you have no idea what's coming. It's a good call.
It does have a lot of trappings of other stories, and it doesn't really
veer away from that either. Because he gets to the house. It's it's
creepy, but it's just because it's a big, old place that hasn't really
been taken care of because this would awa has been invalid and she's been taken
care of by a you know, it's basically a was a hospice for her
for years. And he has to go outside and like crank the generator to
get electricity bought. That's like one of the only places that has electricity around
there, so that was interesting. But at one point he's outside, he's
out front and it's foggy as all get out, and he hears this awful
crash of like a horse and buggy carrying a family, and there's screams and
it's just harrowing, but he can't see it and he can't run, Like
he tries to run out to see if he can help, but he ends
up stepping in the marsh because he can't see the road it's too foggy,
and so then it all goes quiet, and he's like, what the hell
just happened? Well, this keeps happening to him. He keeps hearing this
crash and the screams in the fog, and he never is able to see
anything happen. It's just the sound of it. So he's already freaked out.
She's there's a lot of little details. I don't want to get too
deep and on this, but there's a room that's locked that he can't get
into. There's no key will work that, and that comes into play eventually
where he hears what is it a thumping sound in there? Here's a thumping
Might hear a kid kid giggling or something in Anyways, he gets I guess
angry enough that he can't figure out what's going on that he grabs an axe
and runs back to that door and it's open, and he's like, okay,
and he opens the door and it's like a child's playroom that's pristine,
has not been touched, and maybe there's a rocking chair rocking, or the
well, a ball falls like from the ceiling, or something rolls to him.
And then he hears a voice right yep, yeah, a little girl's
a child's voice, a little boy's voice, a boy voice. I thought
it was a girl's voice. I thought it was a girl for the longest
time, until they point out that it was a boy later on it was
Bart Simpson's voice. So it's both. He'll have a cow man, but
he hears this this voice, and then he gets freaked out runs away and
then when he comes back to that room, it's like trashed, completely torn
up, very poulter Geist desk, like from the Yeah, from the movie
Poulter. Guys, you're missing one very important part that I thought you guys
would bring up immediately. This guy essentially inventsd podcast. Oh yeah. He
finds what do they call that a phonograph or whatever wax cylinders he had with
the wax cones, and he just records his voice in the first he's goofing
around and he's like, well, welcome to monsters among us. He just
starts his own podcast essentially where he's narrating you know, what's going on,
and it's a pretty boring show, honestly. But he finds these cones that
were created by the widow in previous time, which kind of fills in.
She was podcasting first, yes, and she had a much better program than
he did. The quality was through the roof. She had oudly murders in
the building, yes, exactly. So I thought that was funny. And
then he starts hearing all these sounds. I'm like, idiot, you have
the only according device in the country. Go take it outside and record the
sound. But he doesn't Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of decisions
that I don't think I would have made. But what he's doing is he's
going through all the papers and the effects and stuff to try and uh do
the legal proceedings on how they can sell it and you know, the last
will all that stuff. But he he's also like, what happened to this
woman and her family, because there's just weirdness in the town with how they
treated her and what they how they talk about her. And he finds out
that her child was killed in an accident and it ends up being the one
that happened out front, right, that that the buggy went down in the
bar and no one, no one helped them, or something like there was
or this. Okay, okay, wait, let me back up. It
wasn't the woman whose house it was. It was her sister, right,
I didn't get that, but possibly I think I think it was. Geez
it gets It's a very slow movie, everybody. It kind of got convoluted
at the end. It's very slow. Yeah, yeah, it's it's very
slow. I think it was. Okay, I think it was her sister
gave birth to a child out of wedlock, but she wasn't able to care
for it, and this woman instead adopted it. Couldn't have children, I
believe, so she adopted a child which was this child, which was her
her sister's child, So it was she had adopted her nephew. Everyone's tuned
out by now, Like, forget about the movie. They've already tuned out
of this show. I like how David has also not pointed out at all
that there keeps on appearing this woman in black that can everyone see? Can
be? Um? Can the Bastani kids see it? And I'm saying Bistani
instead of the other word they use. And if you're a D and D
player, that's a deep preference and a deep cut, you're welcome. Yeah.
Yeah, there's some there's some. Uh, there's a sprinkling of racism
in the town. That's it from the traveling folk that might have set up
present anyways. Um, yeah, one more thing. So the sister was
mad that that she couldn't have her child, so she tried to escape with
a child one day and that's when they they got caught by the tide.
They died in the most violent carriage crash in history to the longest and the
soft mushy Marsh. They're crashing for a good thirty second straight. Yeah,
he sees. When he gets to the town, he sees he attends this
woman's funeral. There's nobody there but him and you know, the priest or
whatever, and one guy who's helping him gets set up. He sees this
woman in a black dress like mourning material, you know, mourning gown off
in the distance like classic. She doesn't have an umbrella, but she might
as well be standing in the ringing at this funeral, overlooking it. And
then when and then something that somebody screams or something, he looks over and
when he looks back, she's not there anymore. Classic. Yes, he
keeps, he keeps seeing her, She keeps showing up. At one point
into Marsh, he finds a little graveyard. She's there. She starts walking
towards him, and he freaks out runs away. So, yes, thank
you for bringing her, and thank you for bringing the title character into this
plot. I'm trying to get It was easy to forget her, though,
because she would show up and then just disappear, like there was no resolution
to any of the scenes that she was in. Did he run out of
the room did she disappear, like what ended up happening? Can other people
see her? Well, yeah, it's just him. The whole town kind
of had that vibe, like he would ask other characters questions and they just
flat out wouldn't answer him. They would just respond with something else. They're
like, oh, it's getting dark out, he asked the one guy.
I can't remember the question he asked him a question the guys a past the
sault, Like it was so abrupt and so obvious that he was trying not
to answer him. So the whole time, I thought, well, is
our main character a ghost and this whole town is still alive or vice versa,
the whole town's a ghost. I was giving it way more credit than
it really deserved. I thought this plot was much deeper. At a certain
point, I thought for sure that the carriage wreck was his wife and two
kids coming to visit him, and he was hearing it from the future.
I guess, like haunting from the future, because he had two kids,
and I couldn't tell from the wailing going on in that accident, the sound
that you keep talking about if there was one kid or two or how many
people were involved, Like I thought the one was a girl. Actually the
little girl was screaming, but it was apparently a little boy either way.
I thought that was what was going on, and I was thinking, oh,
well, it's kind of clever, but they didn't do any of that.
None of that was done. How did this movie in? David?
Sorry, no, no, I kind of was wondering that too. I'm
like, is this like foreshadowing of what's gonna happen to his family? Yeah,
that's exactly what I is this clever? Is this? Like? What's
is that what this is? And well? Yeah, also that dog that
so this That's what I think the movie actually got interesting. It's so slow.
But one of the guys that helps him, that like picks him up
from the train station and helps him out in the town. He's got this
little dog and the dog's named Spider. I like the explanation hate the name
or something, right like yeah, yeah, he explains, He's like,
oh, it's it's all it's you know, all all hair and legs.
And I'm like I'm like, okay, great explanation. Still hate the name.
And then he's like, do you want to borrow my dog? Yeah?
He's like, take the dog with you. You need company at that
house, and I'm like, what are you doing? Man? This is
a recipe for disest who would lend out their dog. There's no ways coming
back to you. I'll never get that dog back. I'll spoil it for
everybody. The dog is okay. The dog survives. So that's that's kind
of my like litmus test for a movie. Everybody in this movie, though,
honestly, the only person that dies is the widow. Do you remember
the ending? Did you fall asleep? Forget something? As soon as the
dog goes with him to spend the night with him, the movie gets good.
That's unfortunately, about three quarters of the way through he has more supernatural
stuff happening to him at the house. Basically, at one point he goes
to bed and he's awakened by the sound of this voice of this kid.
This might be is this at the house or is it in town? At
that point? The second time was at the end. The second time here
here's the voice is at the end. Yeah, I think he might have
been finds the soul journer of the pillow. I believe, yes. I
think he might have had a nervous breakdown, been taken into town. He's
resting at the spider's owner's house and then he hears he hears the kid and
it wakes him up, and then he feels under his pillow and there's this
little soldier, this little tin soldier or whatever, which he keeps finding other
places. He keeps, yeah, keeps showing up in places, which is
creepy. That's a fun thing. But then all of a sudden, the
kid talks. He's like, oh, what what are you doing? Bull?
And he's like, what's your name? Who are you? And then
the scene happens where this woman in black just shows up floating above his bad
bug eyed, just going and it is that for a solid two minutes if
it's a second, but that sound was exactly what it sounds like. He
is creepy, Yeah, it is. It's creepy, and it's funny because
she's she's doing nothing but floating there and bug eyed and close up on her
face and that's all you need because it was it's creepy, and that's what
has stuck with people all these years, I think. Anyways, he he
absolutely loses his mind. He's sent back to London, he recuperates and then
he's he's just scarred because he finds that that toy soldier in his briefcase.
He burns the lawyer's practice down, or at least his office. He burns
his practice. All the stuff from the Woman in Black's house, including her
original podcasting, Yeah, lost to history. Yeah, wanted to nip that
in the bud. And and sorry, I'll let you finish with what happens
now. And then he returns to his family. They're like, let's take
it. Let's take a break, let's go out boating on the on the
pond. I forgot about this. But then he sees the Woman in Black
and a tree falls on them the end on the water, on the water.
They're in the boat, there's the woman in Black standing in the water
like Jesus, and then the tree falls on him. They spent all their
budget on that. They spent all their budget on their standing out there,
I guarantee, like the meat pole, like the Metatron from Um Dogma Deep
Kevin Smith cut, You're welcome. I am going deep into the Alan Rickman.
Yeah, Alan Rickman's character and Um Dogma. So there, that's my
reference point for that. What was that in reference to the water, Oh
okay, yeah, because he does that too, in the movie, not
just movie. So the movie ends with the entire family dying. Here's the
here's the point probably should have made earlier. I'm all over the place whenever
anybody sees the woman in black, a kid is gonna die. That's what
the town is so up in arms about, because I think they're all kind
of like keeping their heads low and trying not to piss her off. And
then all of a sudden he comes to town, he starts seeing her,
and they're all like, well, crap, now, what if our kids
are going to die? Thanks? Yeah, And they were hoping that would
be one of the Vastani kids, and it almost He saves one of one
of them from a cart falling on it or something, legs falling off of
the cart on the legs, yeah, and a bigger log falling to where
the kid was. Yeah. But he's he saved this uh this this child,
uh, a Romany child. I think that's how we Romani. Yes,
I've referred to it in the past. I'm just gonna keep saying Vestani
for the DND reference. That's this film. It affected people. Um,
how did it affect you guys? It affected me big time. I had
had a busy day to day, and looking back, it affected me a
lot because I could have had that time. Like you could literally condense this
film into like a five minute short, it might be affect if it's basically
what's the best way? It's Season one of Unsolved Mysteries, the world's longest
reenactment. That's what you're watching right here. The budget, the budgets super
low, the actings or whatever, m the story's pretty bad. The effects
are pretty bad. Like there's not really a redeeming factor other than nostalgia.
If you watch this when you were ten years old at Christmas time, you
probably love this film quite honestly. But having watched it now at whatever the
hell old, what am I forty something? Um, it doesn't it doesn't
land. It doesn't land with me now. It's it's just too dated and
it's just too slow for me. And there's too many accents like what is
this a blurry photos episode? Like I don't know what's half these people are
talking about in the same sentence, even in the same sense. And there's
all these different British accents like you get Cockney, you get the other ones
that I can't remember. Um, I usually can that's that's a movie we
should do. Snatch you get seen Snatch, that's yeah, yeah, it's
a British movie. Ranks like that. You mean dogs? Yeahs. Anyway,
I don't know. I like any film. I appreciate that they did
it. It's a ton of work to get a film done of any caliber.
But man, it's dated. It's a dated film. My only redeeming
thing is there's nice little moments with the sound effects when it's not blowing out
your speakers from just being overgone, like him putting on the wax cylinders and
stuff had Like I was like, oh man, the sound effects on that
are cool. And then my speakers blow out a few minutes later from just
something happening, and I'm like, never mind. That could be because it's
on YouTube as well. I mean, this is on YouTube. You guys
can watch it at your leisure. By the way, for yourself, a
favor turn on close caption, because not even the close caption knows what's being
said. There were several times where the dog was referred to as Spider Man
for some reason. I don't know why. Also, the where where the
dog goes and runs off and he's goes Spider. I was like, is
he scared to Spider? Oh right, dog's names Like. I had so
much anxiety Once he borrowed the dog, I'm like, yeah, give the
dog back. He ran off. Yeah, the marsh I'm like, and
I wrote a note somewhere. I'm like, I knew this was gonna happen.
There did something like that like don't let people borrow your pets. That's
rule number three year whatever. Jeez, maybe that's a British thing. I
don't know sure, but they were talking about how much they love this dog
and oh, he's the greatest. I'll just take him. We don't need
it, right. I'm hung up on that for some reason. I'm not
even a dog guy, and I'm still hung up. But the dog was
okay, So he was okay. I would dog was the smartest one one
in the film. He ran and immediately I'm an all out of here,
ran all the way home. Yep. I actually have a question for you
guys. Uh and I kind of touched on it with some of my theories
as to what's going on. But if you were to forget the remake,
let's say you're going to remake this film today, what would you add to
it to bring it into modern times. I guess the best way to put
it what would you add or subtract or how would you change the story to
make it more interesting. I can't really answer that after having watched the remake,
because I think they did a lot of stuff that I probably would have
done myself, Like crank up the creepiness factor, crank up the children creepiness
factor. Have the woman be more of a character in it than just appearing
like a handful of times, even including the time where she's just screeching with
her bug eyes. So once I get into a little bit of the remake,
I think you might agree too, But I'm interested in zing or what
do you think? How would you do it? So? Something that bugs
me in this and other like horror movies stuff like that, especially ghost hauntings,
is does the main character deserve what happens to them? I don't think
this guy does. Is like, he's a good family man who's just trying
to do the right thing here. Now his boss, if the boss were
the one out there, yeah, he deserves to have everything happened to him.
But that's the That's the thing that bugged me about this is I'm like,
this guy did nothing to deserve the outcome he gets, aside from just
do his job and wanting to resolve this situation. And there's no like warnings
of like you know, the the I don't know why this is sticking in
my head for some reason. Um, sometimes that is better, like like
like something like someone. I mean, yeah, they all warn him,
hey, don't go out there, but there's no one that's like, just
leave it alone, don't. I just feel him being the focus of the
ghost eyre is an undeserved thing. Maybe have him be unfaithful to his wife
and the remake, maybe have him be the one who's mean to the employee,
like make him an unlikable character so the outcome is kind of like deserved
instead of just God, did guy did good thing? Bad thing happened to
him in the end. Don't know why I broke in the caveman explanation,
but there you go. That's that's all I would do it. I would
want the character to deserve the outcome. Challow ground up. Then your pet.
That's a movie we should do, guys pet cemetery. Um, yeah,
there is, there is. I don't disagree with you, justin but
at the same time, like maybe his quote unquote sin was choosing workover family
because he comes home and well, let's let's back up. The bosses like,
you gotta go do this thing at this mansion on the other side of
England wherever it is. Uh, you have to write a train to get
there. It's far away. And he's like, you don't have a choice.
If you want to move up in this firm, you have to do
this. And he's like, but I got a wife, I got a
kid, blah blah blah. And then he goes home. We find out
he is a nanny for Starters, So what's he even doing. There was
some weird stuff with a nanny, but his boss blames him for having kids.
By the way, did you catch that. Yeah, he was like,
if you if you wanted a career, you shouldn't have had a family
or something like that basically, And then he goes home tells his wife,
I got to go out of town for a week, like, good luck
with you, and the nanny like she'll be fine. But and they still
get a babysitter anyway, even though they have a nanny. I don't understand
the whole nanny things. It's a British thing, Mary Poppins. The more
I'm talking about it, the more questions popping in my head because he comes
home at this scene and then the little kids like the nanny pushed me,
and then Nanny's like, no, I didn't, and then the parents looked
concerned at each other and then never came up again, like is this an
abuse of nanny? Like what's happening in this scene? But anyway, the
whole point of what I'm getting at is the boss knew about this haunting and
he sent him there so that the boss didn't have to go. So he
was kind of that unwilling victim. And then the choice that he made was
he chose his career well further in his career in this instance, at least
over his family. And that would be the quote unquote sin that I would
compare it to. But it's it's a British horror film, so I feel
like everything's like watered down a little bit. Not no dig on the British
whatsoever, but it's it's especially an eighty nine major TV British movie. It's
pretty dry. Let me tell you what they did with the remake. It's
almost a completely different story. Basically, it's the premise of a solicitor having
to go to eel Marsh House to administer the final will of this widow.
That's the same. Everything else is basically different. The woman in black in
that is much more hands on. She is like out to get kids.
There are tons of kids that have died one of them. Harry Potter plays
the solicitor in it. In this one, he is a single parent.
His wife has died in childbirth, so he's Scott the kid alone and has
a nanny to hell Sow every horror movie starts, so we're off to a
good start. Yeah. Yeah. He is not as jovial and stuff as
a lawyer as the Southern one. In fact, the lawyer and this was
like you need to get your act together. You're like failing, so go
do this or you're fired. And he's like, okay, I'll do this.
And he gets there and basically the town from the get go is like
get out. We don't want you here, especially knowing that you're going to
go to this place where this woman's been taken our kids. And at one
point he's like at the police station and a few kids come in. One
of them is like sickly, and then she just vomits blood and dies in
his arms because she has she has ingested lie. There's another part where there's
a fire. He comes into town, into town, there's a fire in
a house. He goes there's a kid in it still, so he busts
in. He's like, I'm going to show everybody that I'm not here to
mess with them, I'm here to help. He goes into it and the
kids standing there with an oil lamp in her hand, surrounded by flames.
The woman in black is standing beside her, looking at her, and she
just busts this oil lamp at her feet and goes up in flames. The
kids are basically drawn to death. When this woman is around, she like
causes them to do things they wouldn't do. It sounds like a much better,
much better movie. I liked it a lot better. Um, it
wasn't you know. It wasn't perfect by any means. There's a lot of
jump scares that are kind of corny, but it's much much more of a
horror film along the lines of what's happening these days, what's being made,
you know, what we're more used to. I think Harry Potter does a
great job in it. Oh wait, wait wait, since there's a lot
more kids in this one, there's a standard we have here. Does one
of them it punted out the door or any like? Because because we established
from what was it? La Larna? Yeah? Yeah, don't give them
get get just yet. I don't think there's a single yeat in this one
of all time. The kid does yeat blood from her mouth at one point,
and then one of them yeats an oil lamp at her feet so that
she goes up. So but no, no kid, no kid themselves gets
heated, I don't think. But they do separate them at some point though,
don't They put them in different groups and like a like a hat decides
which group they go into. Did not happen? Wrong movie? Oh sorry,
wrong, Daniel Radcliff movie that decides I had to throw it Harry Potter
joke in there somehow. Actually I got okay, that can wait? That
can wait. So one one big difference in this is that Daniel Radcliffe's character
is like, I'm going to help this ghost. I'm going to do something
to get her to stop. He literally goes out at night and U goes
marsh diving. He dives into this swamp and it's like it's basically tar.
It's like all this gross mud. He gets Julius Caesar to to get in
a car and pull out this carriage from this marsh and he gets the body
of the dead kid that is this woman's son, and he like takes it
home, cleans it up, wraps it up, puts it in the nursery.
Where where it it? You know it used to live? Can I
ask what state of decompositions bodies? And at this point it was pretty good.
It was still pretty good, Like you still see facial features and I
you know that happens with bogs, Like bodies that get put in bogs kind
of get preserved. I mean it was it wasn't too quite to that stage.
It was decomposing, but it was still a kid. You could still
he composed. Was this body we're talking about. So he basically invites the
woman in black to collect her kid or to be like, we're gonna bury
the kid. Everything should be fine. And the woman in black shows up,
screams at him, and then disappears, and then he's like, Okay,
that's it, We're done. I solved it and so he goes back
to the train station. Now here's the parts that's completely wild. The maid
and his son show up there in this town at the train station to take
him home. Why so he's talking to Julius Caesar. The kid wanders off,
gets on the railroad tracks. Train comes, Harry Potter jumps down,
grabs the kid. Daniel Redcliffe sees the woman in black watching him as he
jumps down to get the kid. And then the next scene, the kid's
like that day, who is that woman there? And he's like, oh,
that's mummy and he goes up to the to this woman. They hold
hands and walk off down the tracks. So obviously they die, but they
are reunited in death. He hooks up with the woman in black. No,
no, no, this was his wife. Yeah, the woman in
black is there before he gets hit by the train. And then it ends
with the woman in black staring at the camera as she watches them. I'm
sorry, I've got the summary here. Apparently she watches the happy family reunited.
She doesn't then she and then she looks at the camera. Breaks the
fourth wall. So Harry Potter and the kid die and getting hit by the
train, Yes, but they are reunited with the so it's kind of a
maccab happy ending. He dies a lot in his movies. It's better than
the eighty nine version. I think there was a lot more to it.
It's not perfect, but they did, I think what that original movie did
not have, which was crank up the creepy factor, make the Woman in
Black much more of a character in it, much more hands on, and
there were a lot more like you know, he goes into the kid's room
and the rocking chairs rocking on its own, and then it just stops.
There's a lot of like dolls in the new one that they thought the jobst
creepiest faces. So you know, there's a lot of little details that are
in our zeitgeist in the horror genre now that are added in and I think
do make it better. It sounds like they up the atmosphere, which wasn't
really a neat thing because if you think about it, Beetlejuice was a year
older than than True Woman in Black and that thing's full of atmosphere. It's
kind of tim Burton esque, but it's still atmosphere like it's it was a
concept back then. It's it's a strange decision not to include it. I
mean, and maybe they tried, but it seemed like they just used the
location as is, Like it wasn't It wasn't like they really tried to splice
it up any I mean, sure they filled it with fog, but that
was also part of the storyline, like they needed a fog in there.
So nitpicking. But yeah, so anyways, so that's uh, that's the
woman in black. I keep on the lady in black. It is not
it is the woman in black. She was not a lady, definitely not
a lady. I don't know if this was your fun fact zinger or not,
but a little bit of irony. The dude that played the lawyer in
the first one was James Potter in the Harry Potter films, Harry Potter's Dad.
Yeah, life imitates art comes full circle, the world turns again.
Yes, that that that that was pretty interesting thought. Harry Potter's dad was
dead. That was not the point. He was an orphan. No,
no, no, but but of course he plays his dad when he's able
to see his dad. Of course magic. Oh the dad shows up.
Yeah, he's I've only seen the first Harry Potter and there was no dad
in that one. I don't think it was. I don't remember. Okay,
that's I believe you. That's no, it's Philosopher's Stone. And then
Philosopher's Stone in England, Sorcerer's Stone in America. There we go. Yeah,
Harry Potter came to America. Yeah, God, this is it?
Happened after the it's the it's the Testament of Harry Potter in America. Come
on, I showed him in Missouri, Harry Potter and Latter Day Saints.
That's right, Harry in the Church of Latter Day Saints. Oh man,
this is gonna be a new Testament to Harry Potter. It's a brand new
empathy. Um. I actually this fun another fun fact. This is actually
based on a book. So interesting. Oh wait we said that earlier.
Yeah, a novel apparently a whole last novel. Um. In the book,
however, they are killed when when with a horse and buggy collision,
which I guess was just too much to annim I mean to put into film,
because instead they just had a tree fall on them, tree branch all
on them in sync about I would have loved to have seen this epic horse
collision just just just exactly there's these two horse characters just slamming into each other
for thirty seconds of screaming. You know, it's funny, and this has
nothing to do with anything other than what you just said. Justin but where
where I grew up in Ohio the very first They call it an automobile accident,
but they don't mean they don't mean cars, They mean like horse and
buggy. A guy got drunk and was riding his buggy home and flipped it
and it rolled over and popped his head off. And it was the first
ever fatality in a automobile or in a I can't remember, a vehicle or
whatever. I don't know how they word it. But there's like a little
plaque in this little village near where I grew up, and every time I
go by there, I'm like, that's like the very first death in Ohio
based on automo, not automo. I keep saying automobile, but it was
a horse and buggy that killed him, So whatever word they used, vehicle,
I suppose. But that's that's my twod bit. I have nothing to
offer on the film, so I just final thoughts are, Hey, guess
what happened at Ohio this week? This is what happened in my hometown two
hundred years ago? Or what are your final thoughts for this one? The
fact this movie both has a sequel in book form and in movie form disappoint
me to no end, and the fact they exist. I don't have any
interest in seeing them overall. I like I said, I don't think our
main character deserves the terrible torment and death the god. I did like him
choking out his boss randomly and burning half of his firm down because he lost
it. I also like how the fireman starts yelling at him for burning the
place down too. It was a different time where fireman could walk into places
and start yelling at people for why did you do this? And I was
like a great fireman said what I wanted to say. Though the guy's thrown
Let let me fill everybody in really quick. He's going through this trunk that
arrived from the woman in Black's house, and he's like freaking out with every
item he pulls out. He's looking for something, I think, but I
didn't catch it in the plot. So he's thrown papers and papers and throwing
them toward the fireplace, not in it, toward it, and then they're
all like hanging out onto the carpet and onto the floor, and he's like,
that's good enough, and he douses it with some flammable liquid. I
can't remember what I was seeing, they say in there. No, No,
it was I can't remember, they say in the film. And it's
something that's not normally used. Petroleum. Yes, it was petrol, I
believe. So anyway, so he's like, covers all these financial documents with
this flammable liquid and just lights it up and the carpets on fire, and
like he's just standing in there looking at it, and he's putting it in
the fireplace. Yeah, and then he's like, oh, the trunk.
So he douses that thing and flammable liquid and throws it on the ground like
he doesn't even bother and the whole thing burns down. And the whole time
I'm yelling at him, what are you doing? You're gonna cut your whole
office on fire. And I guess that was the point he lost his marbles.
Now that it is a fun question was he crazy the whole time?
Because I pointed out that that the eel manner whatever burned down too, And
did he destroy all the stuff in the kid's room as he was trying to
the fireplace. Yeah, he doesn't know how to use a fireplace. This
is the problem. He doesn't know how to use a fireplace. He's just
like fire make O. That's very cave man ask of you today, justin
that's like place fire, sleeveless burn. Is it my turn for my opinion?
Yeah? Did you get your final thoughts out? This is what happens
when the films are or I'll say the word boring for lack of a better
term. But it makes it hard to do these shows. Like it's hard
to talk about these sometimes because it's like what do you talk about? Like,
I don't want to harp on all the bad things this thing did because
it is thirty something, you're thirty three years old or whatever. Oh yeah,
it makes your shiver just to say that. But you know, you
don't want to rag on the whole thing the whole time. But at the
same time, like, there really wasn't a lot redeeming about it. Like
I said earlier, it could have been boiled down to a ten fifteen minute
short, and I think that would have been boring. Honestly, I see
why they did a remake of it. It has meat on the bone where
you can add to this story, and it has that nostalgia to it,
so I understand why they would take that gamble. I'm anxious to see the
new version of it, even though David just gave the entire plot away for
us. I might spoiler alert by the way, guys I've ever done talking
about it. I don't know. If you have a boring night and you
have your phone out and you're drinking some beer or something, maybe put it
on in the background just to see what we're talking about. But certainly don't
run and watch this film. I couldn't agree. This is such a low
burn you. You really have to be committed to watching British made for television
films of the eighties to make it through this thing. It's so slow,
and I do think that the newer version does a much better job of cutting
to the chase and getting to the stuff that's juicier and just more interesting all
around. I don't I guess that the story ends better in the new one
than the It's kind of weird because in the in the old version, the
woman follows them to London. She's not stuck in this little Seaside Town,
which is kind of a weird ghost rule breaking, I think, But it
is very hard to watch if you're not actively trying to be like, oh,
let's let's just see what this is. And you know, I'm going
to make a point to watch this whole thing, So take that as you
will. I guess that's not a great endorsement of this thing, but at
the time, I think it's what interests me the most about it is that
it was so well received and went straight to legend basically when it when it
aired, and then because it wasn't re aired until like five years later,
it it added to the legend. And I think that's why it occupies such
a place in people's hearts, and the nostalgia really rings true for them.
So, um, if you're gonna watch it, watch both compare them,
you know, if you got the time, uh, and if not,
you could you could take a pass if you want. That's my thought that
one scene you can find, the one scene if you just type in the
woman in black, that scene, you know, the one I'm talking about,
that probably would get through. Pull it up for you and turn your
speakers down to about I mean this, they make the sound that Jim Carey
makes in Dumb and Dummer. That's exactly the sound. It's exactly the sound.
I guess the New One was successful. They say it grossed two hundred
and thirty worldwide, so that's probably what a forty fifty million dollar movie something
like that, I would guess. I would guess it might be a little
bit good. Yeah, I think it's very well made, the New One.
I don't know if it's necessarily great, but fifteen to seventeen million box
office one hundred and sev that's good. That's a good return. In reality,
it's probably ten ten million more than that, so it's still a really
good return. But they always fudge those numbers a little bit. So that's
that's the woman Black. Thanks for listening to this round table. Let's go
around and tell everybody where they can find more of us Zinger. Let's start
with you. Oh, you can of correspond me every week on the Zingis
podcast talking about nerdy topics and since we are in um patent pending Zectober.
Oh sorry, yeah, I would say we did this exact same Joe last
year too. Um, we're we're covering more paranormal stuff like that. So
definitely check us out. Otherwise, we're covering basically anything pop culture, including
movies, TV shows, and everything nerdy that is. Zignis about ze n
G this well, you can find me monsters on this podcast is the name
of my show, and you can find it anywhere you find a podcast.
We release every Thursday on the dot. We almost never miss a day.
But we're in season fourteen now, so brand new season, brand new stories.
They're always brand new stories, but they're extra brand new this time.
Hume off the prices. You can find blurry photos same places, just such
blurry Photos podcast. Blurry photos dot org is the one stop shop, and
please give us all a follow and likes and all that all that good stuff
that helps us out socially. So for this round table, I've been David,
I've been Derek, and I'm a singer and she's been the Woman in Black