Trailer Tracking: ‘The Woman in Black,’ ‘Underworld: Awakening,’ ‘Trespass’

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CHICAGO – The summer movie season is officially over (sigh), and now it’s time for Hollywood to show off what they’ve got planned for us next. (If we had to guess, we say bet on more “Pirates” movies and less “Green Lantern” sequels.)

It’s still a little early to get full trailers for the big holiday/Oscar season films, so we’ll have to make due with mid-level releases and marginalia this week – movies targeted for release pre-holiday 2011 or post-New Year 2012 – and it’s an odd mix. A horror-action sequel resurrecting old characters, a classical haunted house flick staring an iconic actor known best for one role he played for ten years straight, and a thriller starring two Oscar-winning actors that looks… let’s just say it looks like an interesting (possibly notorious) addition to their overall resumes.

But, regardless, as trailer devotees, we here at HollywoodChicago.com still love diving deep into these coming attractions and letting you know what we’re excited about, what underwhelmed us, and what we’re planning to avoid.

Movie: “The Woman in Black”

Best Parts of the Trailer: Killer atmosphere; creepy dolls; feeling a swell of pride at seeing little Dan Radcliffe not playing Harry Potter

Worst Parts of the Trailer: The little kid reading a spooky poem thing is kinda overdone; the fact that we assumed the house was 12 Grimmauld Place; the trailer’s overall “Others”-ness

Our Take: While, yes, we’re fairly sick of the whole “creepy nursery rhyme set to the tune of an ancient music box” device in horror films, we will admit that the trailer for “The Woman in Black” has a lot going for it. First and foremost, it’s a haunted house movie, a real, honest-to-god haunted house movie, with spooky ghost children and unsettlingly eerie old toys and, c’mon, we just don’t see too many of those any more. (Note: “The Woman in Black” trailer is much, much funnier if you listen to the Jonathan Coulton song “Creepy Doll” first. Try it. You won’t be disappointed.) Gone are the days of Vincent Price movies like “Fall of the House of Usher.” Nowadays, everything is either ironic or else it’s all flashy effects and Ryan Reynolds trying to save his family without his shirt on. So it’s nice to see filmmakers trotting out such a classic genre, and the fact that it’s the first UK-shot horror flick from Hammer Films, the legendary British production company, since the 1960s only sweetens the deal.

If nothing else, it looks like Hammer has delivered a beautiful looking ghost story. Some of the visuals in the trailer are extremely striking… if perhaps a little too reminiscent to the 2001 Nicole Kidman movie, “The Others”. Granted, that was the last truly successful period haunted house movie, so comparisons were perhaps inevitable, but I think the “Woman in Black” marketing team will definitely have to decide at one point if they need to strengthen their obvious comparison to “The Others” – hoping to ride on the back of its past success – or if they need to blow apart the comparison and more strongly assert that this is a very different film. From what we know of the story – “Woman in Black” is an adaptation of a 1983 novel, which was previously adapted by the UK’s ITV in 1989 – it’s a very different and much more traditional haunted house tale than “The Others”. It’ll be up to Hammer Films whether that’s a positive or negative when it comes to their marketing.

And then there’s the Boy Who Lived… well, at least, we hope he lives in the end. This is the first major post-Potter film role for Daniel Radcliffe, and it was surprising how reassuring his presence in the trailer was. As soon as Radcliffe is revealed as the protagonist, we experienced a definite moment of relief, perhaps because young Daniel has only appeared in films of a pretty strong pedigree so far. Simply put, the man hasn’t done a lame sex comedy or rom-com yet, so when you see Daniel Radcliffe, unconsciously, it suggests a certain degree of quality. Who knows if he’ll be able to keep up that reputation, but, on a whole, he looks pretty convincing as the lead. So, aside from Mr. Potter, what else do we like about the trailer? Director James Watkins obviously delivered a visually sumptuous film, and we’re secretly fans of his one previous horror flick, the underseen “Eden Lake”. The Hammer name means a lot, and we’re pleasantly surprised at how gimmick free the film looks at this point. It looks like a foggy, marshy, beautifully perverse, fairly straight-forward English ghost story – with no Shyamalan twists or torture porn – and we just don’t get enough of that lately. Our one last complaint: the final scare in the trailer, with the Woman in Black hovering over Radcliffe’s shoulder, is a little “been there, done that.” We complained about the nursery tune earlier, but the “unexpected evil silently appearing from behind” thing has recently become a staple (almost a cliché) in horror trailers – from “The Strangers” to “Paranormal Activity” – so it wasn’t the most effective way to bring the trailer to a close. But, that being said, we’re still very game for “The Woman in Black.” We need more haunted English manors in our lives.

TRAILER OUTLOOK: Solid. A return to a much-loved, underutilized film genre brought to you by a filmmaking team with a nice pedigree and a lead actor with something to prove. As long as it’s not the poor man’s “Others”, we’ll be pleased.

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