Woman In Black Book Vs Movie Essay

Why do we choose to read a horror novel or watch a scary film? The charm of these two different ways of experiencing fear is that even though we know the fact that those occurrences of spooky ghosts, dreadful monsters, and wicked sounds or things are just nonentity, they still keep us on the edge of our seats and stay terrified over a couple of days (Dargis). And in recent years, quite a few horror novels have been adapted for films, that it is also common for audience when it comes to several sequels and remakes. The Woman in Black written by Susan Hill was rearranged into a film as well, and the film adaptation was directed by James Watkins. In terms of conveying horror, the novel is much more engrossing than the film version in most parts because of its better job in emphasizing the suspense of the identity of the woman in black, the mystery of the haunted Eel Marsh House, and foreshadowing of unfortunate weird events. Suspense is built up through detailed descriptions of character’s psychological activities in the book, which gradually raises both reader’s confusion and curiosity. For example, the identity of the woman in black had been a great puzzle to the protagonist, Arthur. It was at Mrs. Drablow’s funeral that Arthur first met this strange uninvited guest, and wondered “what connection she would have had with her, what

For instance, there was one scene that Arthur walked back from the grove to the house, he happened to notice the woman in black with a pale face staring at him in the nursery room. After that, he rushed back to the house but found nothing of her. Although the spooky background music played a big role, the suspense about the woman in black is quite lackluster because we couldn’t tell Arthur’s internal thoughts in the