Decent atmospheric chiller

Rating: 7/10 (10 February 2012)

Having first read the novel and watched a TV adaptation in my English class as a 14 year-old, I had pretty high expectations of this big- screen version. And overall I wasn't disappointed.
I felt the film capitalised well on the seclusion and isolation of the town and, more importantly, Eel Marsh House. You really do feel that there's no way out once Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is at the house. The house itself is suitably eerie and has you on edge for as long as Kipps is there.
There are plenty of little frights throughout the movie, but I didn't feel this ever became cheap and pointless like so many other films in the horror genre. Indeed, i'd classify this as an honest old-fashioned ghost story more than anything else. Daniel Radcliffe is clearly going to struggle to break away from his earlier role, but I thought this was a step in the right direction. I did actually care about what happened to the character, which is more than can be said for so many lead characters.
Where I felt the movie fell down was showing the dreaded Woman a little too much. It's that old thing where sometimes the more that's left to the audiences imagination the better. The setting was definitely creepy enough that they could have left her out of a few more scenes. I also didn't like the very end scene simply because it's not how I would have ended it. You'll have to decide for yourself though.
All in all I recommend this as a very worthwhile way of spending a couple of hours.