Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks & Its Hard to Make an Old Ghost Happy Again

Rating: 6/10 (22 May 2012)

A post-Dickensian movie set in the moors of England, beautiful in its sea-mist and greyness of feeling. The star of the movie is its setting. The mansion, which would have made Mrs. Haversham quite comfortable to live in. I haven't seen cinematography this rich since Melancholia. I've never seen a Harry Potter movie but was impressed with Radcliffe's Arthur Kips. Ciaran Hinds is the anchor that holds this movie together. His character is the logic we need in this nefarious supernatural setting. I liked the premise the movie gave us in the beginning. The limitations it set by keeping Mr. Kips there to do the job he was employed for because his job was on probation so to speak. Also the access denied to leaving the Mansion on the moors due to the ebb and flow of the tides.
Still, the PG-13 setting worried me that this movie would be limited and not push the envelope of horror. I maintain I was correct in that assumption. Lets look at Ti West's THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, same genre with similar setting, "person in house alone". THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL had me on the edge of my seat with tension, while THE WOMAN IN BLACK resorts to redundant one-note tricks, rocking chairs, creaking in the attic, manequins that move and voices. I was not scared even minimally.One last comment is that it seems in the horror genre in the past few years, most endings have evil prevail, and this movie followed suit.