Shades of Darkness.

In order to show my respect for those few splendid stalwarts who still bother to check in here, I think I should pop my head out of the catacombs and wave.

The past week has been a bleak week, a week in which I’ve felt nothing but glumness, noticed nothing noteworthy, and haven’t even bothered to come to an opinion on anything of import. I’ve had nothing to say, so I haven’t said anything.

I can report, however, that I watched two contrasting films.

The first was the latest incarnation of the Snow White story – Snow White and the Huntsman. The problem with it was that the two female leads, Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart, appeared to be on the first run through after a night of overindulgence and very little sleep. Neither did subtle; both did wooden with aplomb. I found myself hoping that the dwarves would soon appear, since I was convinced that things would improve immeasurably when they did. And I was right, because the dwarves were played by a bunch of notable British and Irish character actors. They knew how to act, and they did so superbly. The only other notable feature was that the writers and director ripped off a few ideas from LOTR, and did so badly. That’s about it.

Tonight I watched the 2012 version of The Woman in Black starring the post-Potter Daniel Radcliffe and the post-everything-else Ciaran Hinds (whose sister I once knew, incidentally.) It’s a truly Gothic tour de force in which Daniel gets himself well menaced by a vengeful ghost in an old dark house, immerses himself in black slime in order to lift the curse, and then finds that he’s failed after all and become just another ghost. It has a happy ending, though. He walks off along the railway track and into the dark mist with his late wife. Well, sort of happy ending. It’s a dark ending for a dark film, I suppose, and it’s a very good film. Unlike modern Hollywood horror which re-jigs a few tired old clichés, adds a load of noise and special effects, and then calls it horror, The Woman in Black goes back to Gothic basics and crafts a near-masterpiece. The atmosphere is heavy, the shock breaks are perfectly timed, and the subtlety is assured. And Daniel Radcliffe knows how to act. I actually got an adrenalin rush twice, which is twice more than I’ve experienced for many a long year. This one I would recommend.

And while I’m on the theme of dark things, I might also mention that I picked up a bottle of Guinness Foreign Extra last Friday. It was quite a revelation. Think heavy, strong, dark, bitter, and liquorice, and there you have it. It was a most splendid brew, and incredibly cheap for a beer of that quality. I’m hoping they’ll still have it the next time I’m passing through Uttoxeter. I’ll get two if they have.

For now, back to the darkness of the catacombs.

Edit to add:

Anybody who read this post earlier will know that I wrongly credited Elijah Wood with the starring role in The Woman in Black. Sorry. I get easily confused when it comes to small people and magical environments.