Chasing Shadows.

Rating: 10/10 (22 February 2012)

Despite always hearing the studio get mentioned when ever something is made about British Horror films,Hammer's Horror movies are something which I have somehow completely missed seeing!.
Around a week or so ago,I began to hear that for the third attempt of bringing the studio back to life,Hammer had made a co-production of a ghost story called The Woman In Black,and since having found the US ghost/demon film Insidious to be something really spooky, (although it did perform one huge "jump the shark",to get to its admittedly strong final shock)I decided to take my first ever look at "Hammer Horror"
The plot:
Being told by his boss that he has one last chance to prove that he can be a useful solicitor,recently widowed Arthur Kipps is ordered to pay a visit to a town in the north east of England,where the estate of Alice Drablow (who also owned a house placed on a small connecting island near by) needs to be sorted.Shortly after arriving to the town,Kipps starts to hear almost all of the residents plead for him to leave the town at once,and to not pay a visit to Drablow's old house.
Meeting a resident called Sam Daily, (whose wife has never been able to fully get over the strange death of their child) Arthur breaths a sigh of relief,due to feeling that he has at last found someone who is welcoming towards him.Deciding to ask Sam about why the rest of the town's people are acting so agitated around him,Sam tells Kipps that the main cause of the problem is that almost all of them believe in some "paranormal mumble- jumble" about the ghost of Alice Drablow going around the town causing the deaths of the areas children.
Still feeling slightly uneasy about what he has heard and seen around the town,Arthur decides that he should pay a visit to Drablow's house,so that he can at last sort out all of her financial details and then get as far away from the town as possible!.Unsurprisingly not being able to find many people willing to take him to the house,Kipps pays a good amount of cash so that he can be taken to the front gate of the house.
As Arthur starts to work through the night at the isolated house,he takes a look outside a window,and for a moment sees an image of a ghostly-looking woman dressed in black.
View on the film:
Viewing the credits of director James Watkins,it is very interesting to see that instead of sticking to an "old faithful" and making a second version of his "Chav Horror" Eden Lake, Watkins instead took a risk that has paid off handsomely.For the haunting Edwardian setting of the film,Watkins and Guy Richie's former cinematography Tim Maurice-Jones cover the film in a bold white and grey mist,which along with creating a tense atmospheric sense of mystery also makes the moments when "the ink" spills across the screen stand out very strongly.
While he does show that he can create a fantastic mood,Watkins also shows that when it comes to spine tingling shocks he can truly deliver.Despite having seen the film around a week ago,almost all of the terrifying moments are still fresh in my mind, (and also still making it pretty hard for me to get some sleep!)thanks to Watkins building a huge amount of oncoming dread and tension up to the maximum point,where a vessel is open to give each shock maximum impact.
Whilst the elegant screenplay by Jane Goodman (who interestingly,has written an ending for the film which almost looks like a more cheerful take on the ending of Sam Rami's Drag Me To Hell) only gives a rough sketch to the main characters life,I found that this actually made me really connect to the film,due to the experience Kipps has of attempting to make sense out of all the chaos around him being something that I felt whilst getting gripped by this tremendous Horror film.
As the opening scene started in the film,my initially first (honest) reaction was that "Harry Potter" was back on the big screen.Luckally,as the films excellent plot really started to get going any memories of a certain "boy wizard" soon started to disappear,with Daniel Radcliffe giving a good performance as Arthur Kipps.Along with showing a fear of "things that go bump in the night",Radcliffe also impressively shows Kipps increased feeling of being an outsider in the town.
Although Radcliffe does get top billing,I strongly feel that one of the most under-rated parts of the film is the performance of Ciaran Hinds as Sam Daily,who along with showing a real natural friendliness towards Kipps also does brilliantly well at showing the pain of all the residents who have lost their children to the woman in black.