I wouldn't *exactly* call it dull...

Rating: 5/10 (22 February 2012)

First off, I found it very difficult to believe Daniel Radcliffe as a father of a four year old. He just looks too young. He also gives a pretty unimpressive performance through out the whole film, but I wasn't really surprised. The film isn't about him after all, it's really about the woman in black and the mystery therein. So anyway, there's all this build-up for the first forty minutes of the film where you see the locals are visibly scared by something and they're acting all queer-like. It never really says why they're so eager to get Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) away from town and we're just led to assume it's because they're scared of the ghost. Yep, okay. A child dies. The town blames Kipps so Kipps, ever the motivated hero that he is, decides to spend a night in the haunted house working. The next twenty minutes is about as exciting as the film gets, but relies on cheap jumps and scares to do so. It's not really building towards something, it's just moving through the motions. Ultimately, the ending was just forced so that we might feel something for Kipps, even though his ultimate fate is by no means emotional and just feels, as I mentioned before, as if it's going through the motions. The only reason I gave 5 Stars (out of 10) was for the entertainment value of the 20 minute "night in the house".