Traditional Ghost Story Done Right

Rating: 7/10 (28 June 2012)

The Woman in Black is an homage to the traditional ghost story. This is not merely because of the film's Edwardian setting, but due to how it is made. It is not gory, nor even violent. Atmosphere and character come first, and scares are generated more by suggestion than in-your-face shocks. Shadows conceal dark figures hiding from the light, figures that vanish before you're even sure you saw them, leaving doubt and fear in their wake so that even harmless, everyday objects are contaminated by the aura of inexplicable fear.
Directed by James Watkins and based on writer Susan Hill's celebrated novel of supernatural dread, The Woman in Black is not going to please everyone. Some horror fans will be disappointed by the lack of blood. But others will be glad to find a scary movie which doesn't feel the need to hit them in the face with the same.
Daniel Radcliffe stars as Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor and single father who has never recovered from his wife's death as she gave birth to their son. Kipps is despatched by his employer to a small village and the foreboding Eel Marsh House, former home of the deceased Alice Drablow, to sort through any remaining legal papers. Kipps arrives to find the Eel Marsh estate in a grim state of disrepair, and discovers new documents to go through under every cubbyhole.
But Kipps soon learns that his real challenge is nothing so mundane as legal drudgery. He hears a carriage that isn't there wreck in the bog which surrounds the house, and is a mute witness to a terrible tragedy's phantom re-enactment. And then he sees a strange woman dressed all in black walking around the house's estate, a woman who clearly isn't normal. What is the secret of Eel Marsh House? And what does the woman in black want? The Woman in Black is a dark, Gothic mystery that succeeds in producing scares without sacrificing its dignity to do so. The script isn't altogether logical, but it is at least serious, and the cast never wavers. Radcliffe is fine as our protagonist, and does a good job of conveying the appropriate sense of gloom and despair that the picture requires. Eel Marsh House itself is a Gothic marvel, a derelict structure alone on an isolated road which floods every evening, cutting it—and anyone unfortunate enough to be within—off from the rest of the town til morning. There could hardly be a better place for unquiet spirits to haunt.
And the Woman in Black herself is a very unquiet spirit, one driven by a single all-consuming passion that justifies every fear the local villagers have. The lack of blood doesn't mean The Woman in Black isn't frightening—at times, it is terribly unnerving in that subtle way that only ghost stories can achieve. If you're in the mood for a traditional ghost story that eschews modern horror clichés, look no further than The Woman in Black.