For such a forgettable film, I will forever remember Woman in Black 2 as the movie that gave me heart palpitations.  A more appropriate subtitle would’ve beenAngel of Jumping out of Dark Corners, making loud noises, and scaring the bejesus out of people. Produced by the once legendary Hammer Films, this sequel has more jump scares than any film in recent memory. By the 15th I lost count, and this was only 27 minutes into a 98 minute film. For all the banging and screeching and flashes of the titular ladies ugly mug, Woman in Black 2 fails to bring the scares and atmosphere that made the first film such a classic, while adding plenty of the same old garbage that brought the genre into ruin to being with.

               

Sometimes dismissed as Harry Potter in the Big Spooky Mansion, 2012’s The Woman in Black was none the less a startling effective experience, providing a horror film staple in the Eel Marsh estate, one of the most terrifying haunted houses since Jack and Wendy had their stay at the Overlook.  Sadly this return trip to that fateful manor in the bogs is not so memorable a journey.

               

Angel of Death takes place forty years after the original, deep in the midst of World War 2. Eve Parkins and her old battle axe of a boss Jean Hogg (an accurate name if I’ve ever heard one) are put in charge of a group of children orphaned by the war and homeless from the bombings. With nowhere else to stay, they take the kids to Eel Marsh House, a decrepit mansion in a long since abandoned town that happens to be owned by the state. Given the long history of deaths, suicides, and other such violence associated with the place, taking a group of war torn, traumatized orphans into its doors was perhaps not the best idea, but I digress.  As strange accidents and murder begin to take the children’s lives, Eve realizes they might not be so alone.

               

For an Angel of death, Ol Miss Black doesn’t do a lot of killing. Or a lot of scaring for that matter.  The Woman in Black spent large chunks of time just following Daniel Radcliffe around soaking in the atmosphere and building up a sense of dread, but like a trigger happy Pvt. the sequel blows it load too quickly. Rather than go to the trouble of building a mood, Angel of Death prefers the age old method of having something pop up on screen and scream at you.  After 90 minutes of this I was annoyed, my heart had a somewhat irregular beat to it, and I can say that I had been startled many times. But scared? Nope, not even slightly.

               

The Woman in Blacks powers also tend to fluctuate as the plot dictates, leaving her with seemingly god like omnipotence in some scenes, while unable to pull a small, sickly child underwater in others.  Angel of Death makes the baffling choice of having extended scenes completely absent from Eel Marsh house, or even the town surrounding it. It’s quickly apparent without her spooky monkey dolls and gothic estate surrounding her, Mrs. Black isn’t much of a villain. She looks a bit like a member of the Black Veil Brides wearing a nun’s costume, and doesn’t seem to do much more than shriek a lot and make the occasional kiddy off themself. Home is where the heart is after all, and something this ghostly lass should have remembered.

               

My fond memories of the original might sharpen my resolve against Woman in Black 2, but truth be told I’m tired of this drek being pumped into our theaters. Rather than fight you like a man, horror films these days go for the below the belt cheap shot with all the screaming and scary faces and whatnot that might startle, heck, maybe even briefly frighten, but little else.

               

The best horror movies , films like The Shining,  The Thing, and yes,  the original Woman In Black, take time to build their immense and powerful settings before tearing them down  in a series of terrible waves of  near unbearable tension, wrenching the carefully plotted structure apart and providing a fear that seems to chill your very bones.  The same waves crash against Angel of Death but rather than the pristine mansion that is the Shining, they only takeout a crappy little beaten down shack. The original Woman in Black was a bit of resurgence for the haunted house genre. The sequel is just a showcase of everything in recent years that’s gone wrong with it.

 

1 and a half stars out of 5