The Horror Show
The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death
by Tom Harper
After Daniel Radcliffe’s mesmerizing performance in The Woman in Black, the franchise’s sequel, Angel of Death, aims to please the audience without having the dashing celebrity do his magic.
Using the same gloomy cinematography and eerie concept, Hammer Films offers the newest version of the haunting in Eel Marsh House, only this time, Tom Harper sits in the director’s chair.
The story of Angel of Death portrays the period during World War II, in 1941 London, which in the aftermath of the war has been left in a chaotic and wrecked state.
A group of schoolchildren – victims of the war – leave the city in order to take refuge in the secluded (and seemingly safe from the Germans) Eel Marsh House. The story mainly revolves around Eve Parkins (Phoebe Fox), a caring teacher carrying her own personal traumas, and Edward (Oaklee Pendergast), a little orphan who hasn’t spoken since he witnessed his parents’ brutal death.
While trying to settle into the new environment, both Edward and Eve begin to experience strange late night phenomena. The haunting specter of the Woman in Black will eventually terrorize the entire group and Eve’s scarring past will somehow come back to the surface.
It is safe to say that the first movie of the franchise, directed by James Watkins, was a good example of horror that is fun to watch. On the contrary, its predecessor, Angel of Death, fails on every level to deliver an equally entertaining outcome. A few clichéd, and frankly cheap, jump scares and haunting scenes every now and then are not nearly enough to capture our undivided attention.
Director Tom Harper tried really hard to create a gripping atmosphere, but eventually all we are left with is unoriginal tropes, most of which we anticipate ahead of time. Creaking doors, toys that begin to move, disturbing drawings picturing a woman in black and unexplainable phenomena are only a few of the exhaustive clichés that we get to witness, and they are all the same bland flavors of horror moments that we’ve seen countless times.
In retrospect, the general idea behind the franchise of The Woman in Black is merely original, but if executed right, it could deliver a quite disturbing and eerie outcome. In the case of Angel of Death, the movie suffers from unoriginality and fails to build upon the storyline.
Maria Kriva, HMS
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