The Woman in Black (2012)

Review

“What did they see?” is the tag line for the second horror film of 2012, The Woman In Black, which is based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Susan Hill. It stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter series) as Arthur Kipps, a London solicitor who is tasked with making sure the paperwork of the Drablow estate is in order after the death of Mrs. Drablow. He travels by train to a remote English Village where things start to get strange.

He gets to the inn where he is supposed to have a room booked through the weekend (for a weekend with his young son and the nanny) only to find that there is no room for him. The owner’s wife puts him in the attic for the night because of the horrible weather. The townspeople look at him strangely until he meets the contact for his law firm who tries to give him some paperwork and shoo him back to London to make a quick end to the business.

Kipps is insistent that he stays and completes the work finally making his way through a long causeway to Eel Marsh House. He begins gathering the paperwork to look for any extra wills that may not have been on file and that’s where the ghost story begins. Kipps sees The Woman in Black and follows after her only to have her disappear shrouded in fog. A great startling moment happens when his transporter comes back just after the ghost disappears.

Upon returning to the village, Arthur speaks to the constable and soon 3 children from the village come to the constablery where a little girl coughs up blood and dies in Kipps’ arms to his horror. A dinner with Mr. Daily, who Kipps met on the train, reveals the death of their child and the trend is identified. Mr. Daily is a complete skeptic of the supernatural and helps Kipps get to the manor after the rest of the village has decided that Kipps must leave.

Arthur’s search through the documents brings the Drablow’s skeletons to light which include the death of their young child, Nathaniel, who was adopted from Mrs. Drablow’s mentally unstable sister, Jennet Humfrye. The sister is revealed to have hung herself from a beam in the manor a few years after the death of the child. Arthur figures out that Humfrye’s ghost is The Woman in Black and through another traumatic scene is forcing the children to kill themselves as revenge for losing her child. At this point, the race is on to see if Kipps can reunite Jennet and her son’s body in order to save his own son who is on his way to the village expecting a peaceful weekend in the country.

Daniel Radcliffe does a spectacular job playing Kipps who is haunted by his own ghosts in the movie. I can say that not once during the movie did he lack believability in his character which I was afraid of due to his being the face of Harry Potter for so many movies. Janet McTeer does a good job as Mrs. Daily who has been driven slightly over the edge at times due to the loss of her child and is a compelling character when she gets screen time in the movie.

If you’re a fan of the horror movies that are all about making you jump, you will love The Woman In Black. The movie makes great use of dramatic tension along with spooky music to cause a lot of moments that startle you in your seat. My female companion had her head in her jacket/shirt and was peeking out from there because she was scared. The movie did leave a few plotholes in it regarding the rest of the Drablow family and the sister that probably could have been answered if they had lengthened the movie which comes in at 95 minutes.

The final verdict on The Woman In Black is a thumbs up as it’s a generally well told story that makes use of great cinematic devices to provide a thrill ride that scares and entertains you as you wait to see what happens with the story.


Director : James Watkins
Writers : Susan Hill (novel), Jane Goldman
Release : 15 March 2012
Genres : Drama | Horror | Thriller
Stars : Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer and Ciarán Hinds
imdb.com





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