The woman is a 2012 British horror film directed by James Watkins and written by Jane Goldman, and is based on Susan Hill’s novel of the same name. Produced by Hammer productions the film stars Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, Sophie Stuckey, and Liz White. Incidentally a 1989 television adaptation was also done on the same story, to much success.

• The woman in black is Jennet Humfrye, a woman who was declared mentally unfit and her young son Nathaniel, was legally adopted by her sister Alice Drablow and her husband. In correspondences that Arthur Kipps later reads, Jennet denies Alice’s verdict of “mentally unfit” and demands to see her son Nate. While Alice and Nate were riding in a horse carriage they got stuck in a marsh and only Alice survived. Jennet blamed her sister hung herself in the nursery, vowing never to forgive Alice.
• Many years later after old Alice Drablow dies, Jennet still haunts the small Edwardian village. Sightings of her dressed completely in black, forewarns the death of a child. Widowed London lawyer Arthur Kipps is sent to the village to examine the papers left by Alice & oversee the sale of the Eel Marsh House. Arthur arranges for his son and his nanny to visit him in the village in a couple of days.
• Arthur finds the villagers reluctant to talk to him and gets no response on the house or the death of the window. His only solace is Samuel Daily and his wife Elizabeth, who let him stay at their house as the local inn is full. The Dailys’ have been a victim of this tragedy as their own son died by drowning and his death drove Elizabeth a little over the edge. She dotes on two small dogs and treats them more like young boys rather than pets.
• On visiting the Eel Marsh house, which lies in a desolate end of the marshes where fog sets in regularly, he sees a woman in black but is unable to find her. He witnesses the death of a young girl, who took fatally drank lye. While spending the night at the house, with just a dog that Sam lends him for company, Arthur finds the letters and begins to understand the story. He gets frightened when things move and noises are made in the nursery, including toys of Nate that play on their own. Arthur also sees visions of dead children in the woods outside the House. The Woman in Black appears hanging from a roof beam.
• By morning Sam arrives and they go to the village to find a young girl has set fire to her family house. Arthur rushes in to rescue her but he sees the woman in black just before the girl douses herself and goes up in flames. Elisabeth says the Woman is Jennet, who appears before she takes a child away by having them commit suicide. Fearing that Arthur’s son Joseph maybe next, Sam & Arthur find Nate’s dead body stiyll in the carriage on the marsh, and place the boy’s body in his nurser. Arthur lures Jennet’s ghost to the body. Arthur and Sam then bury Nate with Jennet.
• At the railway station Arthur & Sam greet the nanny & Joseph. Arthur asks the nanny to make arrangements for the 3 of them to go back to London that night itself not wanting to stay there any longer. While the nanny is getting tickets and Sam & Arthur talk, Joseph is led to the railway tracks on seeing the woman in black. Arthur notices his son walking towards a train and rushes to grab him. We see the train pass by and then …..this part is a bit unraveling. From what I understand, both Arthur & his son are killed by the train and their spirits are greeted by that of his dead wife’s. The three of them leave as a family as the woman in  black looks at them for a moment before screeching into the camera! The end!

It’s kinda slow and dull for most parts and the ending is a bit cheesy and predictable. 7 outta 10!

I hadn’t watched the Halloween movie for the longest time. It was only in May of last year that I first got into this franchise after watching the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween and a couple of weeks later I watched the sequel he made. Zombie’s movies were ofcourse a tribute & remake of the original run of Halloween movies which started back in 1978 when director John Carpenter co-wrote & directed an independent slasher-horror film with the name Halloween.And the legend of Michael Myers was born!

On Halloween 1963, young Michael Myers, all of 6 years old puts on a mask and murders his older sister Judith, after she had sex with her boyfriend, by repeatedly stabbing at her naked self with a butcher knife. 15 years later, 25 year old Michael escapes from the mental institute he was committed to, steals a car and heads back to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois. There, now dressed in blue coveralls and a white mask, he stalks a high school student Laurie Strode. Laurie sees the strange figure staring at her from afar but her friends dismiss her concerns. Meanwhile psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis figures out where Michael is and seeks the help of Haddonfield sheriff Leigh Brackett, the father of Laurie’s friend Annie, and the took begin to search for Michael in town. That night Michael kills Laurie’s friends Lynda, Annie and their boyfriends who had come to have sex with them. Laurie is attacked by Michael and hides with two small kids she and Annie were respectively babysitting. While hiding Laurie managed to stab Michael with a  lingering knitting needle but he doesn’t die and reappears in pursuit of her. Dr. Loomis sees Tommy and Lindsey running away from the house and suspects Michael could be inside. Back inside, Michael gets up and tries to strangle Laurie, but Dr. Loomis arrives in time to save her and shoot Michael in the head, then five more times in the chest for a total of six shots. Michael falls from the second-story patio onto the lawn below. However Michael is missing when Loomis looks for the body.

3 years later the first sequel Halloween II is released, this time directed by Rick Rosenthal, and written and produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It picks up directly where the first movie ends. Laurie is sent to the hospital due to the injuries inflicted by Michael Myers while Dr. Loomis attempts to track him down after he had gone missing after being shot six times and falling from a second story window. Michael hides from the police car and steals a knife from a kitchen and kills a neighbourhood girl. He learns that Laurie is taken to Haddonfield Memorial hospital via news reports and heads there. Laurie, having been sedated, is in a semi-conscious state most of the time, and her friend Jimmy looks out for her. Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett continue to search for Michael, only for an oncoming speeding police car to accidentally hit and kill Ben Tramer (who was dressed for Halloween wearing a mask similar to Michael’s), in the process.

Michael reaches the hospital and cuts the phone line and kills the security guard. He begins killing off the hospital staff by whatever means come available, strangling one of the ambulance attendants named Budd and drowning his nurse companion Karen, who were naked, in a scalding hot tub. He kills the head physician Dr. Mixter and a nurse named Janet by injecting air into their eye sockets via needles. Loomis follows clues connecting Michael to Samhain and the occult which might explain his seeming indestructibility but is approached by a lady from the institute saying that he is ordered to head back there with a National Guard escort. She also tells him that Laurie is the younger sister of Michael, who was adopted by the Strode family. Realizing why Laurie is Michael’s target, Loomis fires warning shots and forces the guard to head back to the hospital. The last nurse, Jill, is killed by Michael who stabs her in the back with a scalpel. Laurie escapes to the parking area but finds all the cars with flat tires Loomis, the nurse and trooper arrive and just barely save Laurie from being killed by Michael. The nurse goes to the police car to call for help, Michael cuts the trooper’s throat, and Loomis and Laurie flee into the operating rooms. Laurie shoots out both Michael’s eyes, causing him to blindly swing at them. Loomis fills the room with ether and oxygen gas using the distraction to allow Laurie to escape. Then he ignites it, blowing up the surgery room in the process and evidently immolating them both in the fire. As day breaks Laurie is taken to another hospital along with Jimmy who also escaped being killed by Michael.

Halloween III : Season Of The Witch has got nothing to do storywise with the rest of the franchise. It is the only movie to not feature Michael or Laurie. Instead it has a standalone story set on Halloween & witchcraft being a central theme. It is the first film to be directed and written by Tommy Lee Wallace. John Carpenter and Debra Hill, the creators of Halloween, return as producers. Harry Grimbridge, a shop owner, escaping from 3 suited me in a car, approaches a filling station in bad shape and is taken to the hospital by the attendant. Harry, who kept clutching a Halloween Jack-o-lantern mask, is later killed by at the hospital by one of the suited men who then goes into his car, pours fuel over himself and sets himself on fire. The doctor who treated Harry,  Dr. Dan Challis, is perplexed by the whole ordeal and joins Harry’s daughter Ellie in investigating the incident, leading them to the small town of Santa Mira, California, home of the Silver Shamrock Novelties factory, the last place that Harry was reported to be!

The town is a strange one, ruled by the prosperous Irish factory owner Conal Cochran and that the majority of the town’s population are descendants of Irish immigrants. Ellie & Challis pretend to be a married couple who run a store and stay the night at the same motel that Harry did. A visiting store owner Marge is killed in the night when she tries to fiddle with a button on one of the masks. A day after arriving in Santa Mira, Challis and Ellie tour the factory with the Kupfers family and are alarmed to discover Grimbridge’s car there, guarded by more men dressed in suits. On returning to the hotel, they find the phones not working and Ellie is kidnapped by men in suits. Challis breaks into the factory to find her and discovers that the men in suits are androids created by Cochran. Challis is captured by the androids and Cochran reveals his plan to kill children on Halloween night. The Silver Shamrock trademark on the masks contains a computer chip containing a fragment of Stonehenge. When the Silver Shamrock television commercial airs on Halloween night, the chip will activate, killing the wearer and unleashing a lethal swarm of insects and snakes, killing those around the wearer. Cochran explains his plan to resurrect macabre aspects of Gaelic festival Samhain, which he connects to witchcraft. Challis escapes and rescues Ellie and destroy the factory when the chips all over react the androids and Coachran are killed in a blast. While driving away, Challis is attacked by “Ellie”, causing him to crash his car. He finds that she is an android copy and destroys it in a brief struggle. On foot, Challis returns to the filling station, where Ellie’s father had come to eight days earlier, and contacts the television stations, convincing all but one to remove the commercial. Challis screams into the telephone to stop the commercial as the film abruptly ends.

I prefer the Myers story and was thoroughly disappointed by the 2nd sequel which has a had storyline and bad actors. Cochran’s chips emit lazer beams and worms, insects & snakes come out of it? What the hell? All so he can sacrifice the children to the Pagan gods! Here’s my rating for the 3 movies – 7, 7.5 and 5 outta 10 respectively!

Dracula 3D is a Spanish-Italian-French collaboration horror film based on the story of the legendary Count Dracula. Directed by Dario Argento and the film stars Thomas Kretschmann, Marta Gastini, Asia Argento and Rutger Hauer. The film is not a direct adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, but features elements from the novel. I have no idea why they bothered but being such a big Dracula fan, I just had to take a look.

So the story goes like this, in a village up in the Carpathian mountains a young girl, Tania, sneaks out after dark to go and have a rendezvous with her lover Milos. They get naked and do the love making (a sexy nude Marta is probably one of the highlights) and they go their separate ways when Milos doesn’t want to escort Tania home as it is too late. Tania, stupidly removes her crucifix, that Milos had given her, and goes home alone. She is chased by a large owl that turns into Dracula who then bites her, as a villager watches and smiles. A day after she is buried Tania rises as a vampire just as 3 men try to stake her. The next day Johnathan Harker arrives to meet his wife’s best friend Lucy, the daughter of the mayor, who has arranged a job for him as a librarian at the castle of Lord Dracula. He goes there and meets Tania who tries to seduce him until the count himself approaches and chastises her. The following night Tania tries again to bite Harker, she is close to his neck when she is stopped by the count who gets the upper hand and it is he himself who bites Harker’s neck, however allowing him to live. The following day, weakened but still conscious Harker attempts to escape, but as soon as he is outside the castle a large wolf with a white lock assaults and savagely kills him.

Let me stop there for a second- the wolf changing into Dracula has got to be one of the weakest CGI effects I have ever seen, almost cartoonish! Anyways, Mina arrives in town and is greeted by Lucy who is soon bitten by the count. The next day after some rest, Mina on her way to the castle to find Johnathan is attacked by a small pack of wolves who are chased away by a bigger wolf (Dracula). Mina faints and is brought to the castle by Dracula, who has orchestrated all the events to this point as the lovely Mina resembles his long dead lover. Upon her return to the Kisslinger house, Mina learns of the death of her dear friend Lucy. Due to these strange events she invited Dr Abraham Van Helsing to the town. Van Helsing, aware of the circumstances decides to act swiftly and prepares the tools needed to combat vampires. Mina sees him sneaking to the crypt just in time to kill a risen Lucy. Van Helsing must also kill Tania who was sent to kill him. Meanwhile we learn that Dracula has a pact with the villagers and kills the ones who plan on rescinding from it as they fear the bodies piling up. Dracula, intent on his desire to reunite with his beloved wife, leads Mina, completely hypnotized, to the castle where Van Helsing is waiting. Van Helsing plans to shoot at Dracula with special silver bullets but the gun is knocked out of his hands and lands at Mina’s feet. Momentarily snapped out of her trance, while Dracula attacks Van Helsing, Mina shoots Dracula and the special silver bullet transforms Dracula into ashes. Van Helsing leads a distraught Mina back to the village but….after they leave the ashes form a black cloud of dust in the form a sinister bat with a huge grin. Dracula still lives!

Bah humbug! Nothing original, below par film with a simple story and atrocious special effects. Laughable to say the least. Things do pick up with Rutger Hauer appears and it is saved from being a total disaster. 4.5 outta 10!