MovieChat Forums > The Woman in Black (2012) Discussion > How was the boy's body so well preserved...

How was the boy's body so well preserved?

posted 10 years ago by ydobon-1
16 replies | jump to latest

It's supposedly been many years since Nathaniel drowned in the marsh and his mother killed herself, yet when Arthur goes out to get his body, it looks like he's only been down there for a couple days.

While there have been instances of bodies being recovered from bogs in good condition, a marsh isn't exactly a bog. They lack the qualities that cause a bog to mummify flesh. A body in a marsh for several years, even if covered in mud, would be badly decayed at best and probably nothing more than a skeleton.

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[–] 10 years ago

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[–] ydobon-1 10 years ago

Bogs have a lot of peat, which produces tannin, which in turn can preserve bodies.

Marshes are just muddy wetlands, that as far as I know, don't have any special preservative qualities.

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[–] 10 years ago

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[–] winonaforever2 10 years ago

There is no explanation, it was just necessary for the plot that the body was preserved instead of a bunch of bones so that Arthur could carry it out of the marsh. It's funny that when they open the mother's grave she's an actual skeleton and the boy look only a few days dead. It was a bad film, a lot of things don't make sense.

[–] raf-33 10 years ago

Coffins are empty you moron, there is nothing inside them to inhibit bacterial growth.

Ya Kirk-loving Spocksucker!

[–] tristanp25 10 years ago

I was wondering the same thing. Like the little boy was dead from time ago and his body was never found, but yet Arthur, who isn't even a detective, ends up finding the body in the marsh, let alone finds the body preserved instead of decomposed? Something doesn't add up and they didn't elaborate there.

[–] funkiste 10 years ago

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure they explained that they never really tried to recover the boy's body before.

[–] KingCobra686 9 years ago

That was my impression. The boy obviously drowned in the marsh and didnt drift very far, so instead of wasting the effort to pull him out they put the grave marker right there.

[–] jpowers4667 9 years ago

Maybe you weren't watching. They elaborated quite a bit. Arthur saw a vision of the boy climbing out of the marsh as he was looking out the window, and he also read newspaper clippings/paperwork in the house. From there, it isn't that difficult to deduce the location of the body.

[–] jpowers4667 9 years ago

And it's been awhile since I've seen it, but I'm pretty sure they DID know where the body was, but it was more or less a matter of not being able to pull it out of the marsh at the time.

[–] catbookss 9 years ago

The cross marked the location of the trap, with Arthur's body and the horse, where the accident took place. Yes, they had no automobiles back when it happened, so no way to pull out something that heavy and retrieve the body.

[–] btraish 9 years ago

Presumably a team of six or eight horses could have done it, but perhaps best not to push the point too much.

[–] catbookss 9 years ago

You know, I thought about that very thing. Then dismissed it because the causeway was very narrow, even at low tide. The car had to pull it out from the angle of the width of the causeway to be able to get it out. A team of horses couldn't have done that without getting stuck in the marsh themselves.

[–] Urmelita 9 years ago

The way to do it, is to build a floating platform around the site and lift it out with pulleys. That way -ships- have gotten out of worse locations.

At the very least, the body could have been recovered easily, by someone with enough guts to take a dip into the pond the carriage vanshed in. All it would take is one guy willing to jump in and a few guys holding a rope to pull him out if necessary.

The reason the body was still there, was that nobody cared enough to do it.

[–] catbookss 9 years ago

The way to do it, is to build a floating platform around the site and lift it out with pulleys. That way -ships- have gotten out of worse locations.

Admittedly I know nothing about how they got ships out of mud, or retrieve sunken ships (which I thought they simply deserted), but how would a floating platform be stable enough to raise a heavy trap with pulleys?

At the very least, the body could have been recovered easily, by someone with enough guts to take a dip into the pond the carriage vanshed in. All it would take is one guy willing to jump in and a few guys holding a rope to pull him out if necessary.

From the way they showed it, Arthur couldn't reach the boy's body without the trap being pulled up first.

The reason the body was still there, was that nobody cared enough to do it.

That doesn't make sense to me. Alice and her husband were still alive for many years after his death. They loved and mourned loss of Nathaniel.

[–] Urmelita 9 years ago

Think of two connected floats, with a large enough gap between them, to lift the carriage out. Stuff like that has been done as far back as ancient greece.

He prolly couldn't -find- the boy's body, but he could reach down deep enough to tie a rope to the carriage.