A Long Black Veil!

Rating: 8/10 (14 May 2019)

The Woman In Black is a great little unpretentious spook fest well worth your attention. It has a fine cast, evocatively interesting locations and sets and first rate cinematography. Most importantly director James Watkins has sensibly concentrated on slowly building an atmosphere of generally unseen dread and terror, rather than turning the film into some sort of special effects extravaganza. In this respect the film might be described as being a traditional ghost story, reinforced by the Edwardian English time setting of the piece. But this certainly is not to detract from the quality of this creepy tale of a young, recently widowed lawyer who travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.
Daniel Radcliffe well and truly casts aside his Harry Potter persona to play lawyer Arthur Kipps, still semi-depressed and mourning his young wife Stella, who died 4 years earlier giving birth to their son. The film is centred around his character and requires a great deal of adroit use of facial and body expressiveness, as he is the sole (human) character on screen for long periods. This is a movie, not over-burdened with reams of dialogue. Ciaran Hinds is on hand though, to give fine support playing local landowner Sam Daily, one of the few local people willing to assist Arthur attempt to complete his tasks for his London law firm, despite his family also being tragically affected by The Woman in Black.
The film was both a critical and commercial success and I have to admit I'm surprised James Watkins doesn't have a higher cinema profile, having only directed one feature since. He seems to have a strong understanding of what constitutes a good film, with an easily appreciated example, being the inclusion of the sad/happy ending, rather than just going for some sort of shock finale. Watching The Woman in Black may well see you adding a bit of colour to your regular movie diet.