The Woman in Black, 2012.
Directed by James Watkins.
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, Sophie Stuckey and Liz White.
SYNOPSIS:
A young widower and lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) travels to a remote village to work out a client’s estate and discovers a populous transformed by the belief that a vengeful ghost of a scorned woman has manipulated the village’s children to commit suicide.
The most iconic horror film production company of all time, Hammer, is back producing new horror films for the genre they helped define. The Woman in Black features Daniel ‘Harry Potter’ Radcliffe in his first leading role outside of the series that put him on the map and is an intimate, paranormal, psychological thriller that’s refreshingly ‘classical’ in its filmic and narrative approach. The opening to The Woman in Black is striking, and really sets the scene for what’s to come. Three little sisters are playing ‘tea party’ in their house’s attic when suddenly they stand, head over to the windows and open them in unison. They proceed to peacefully jump to their death. As the camera pulls back from the window frame to hover over the room, not only to do you hear the blood curdling screams of their loved ones, but a cloaked figure (‘The Woman’) stands watch.
Screenwriter Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class) wants the audience to empathise and be drawn into Kipps’ world and there’s a conservative and concise shorthand that presents you with his bleak and hopeless situation. He’s alienated from his son as a result of his wife’s death during pregnancy and he’s had to work hard to be able to afford a nanny to care for him. Goldman unravels his past in sleepless haunting flashbacks and makes his character wallow in the excruciating unknown.
Kipps arrives in the village and the townsfolk attempt to get him out as his presence and destination is an ominous sign of a darkness to come. Radcliffe shows his increasing acting chops in the role of a young and emotionally wounded man who is desperate to maintain a relationship with his son. Radcliffe is able to evoke a lot of the terror of the isolation, not only in a town that treats your presence like a body fighting an illness, but also in the slow investigation that uncovers a series of horrific incidents surrounding the supposedly ghostly antagonist.
The ominous village provides a surreal space for Kipps because his presence is immediately a sign to the locals that he’ll bring them more pain. As unexplainable acts begin to occur, Kipps’ work takes him to the manor house on the moor where director James Watkins uses the creaking, leaking, dusty manor to full effect, conjuring a terrifying space for him to occupy. The dark manor and moor provide a literal and metaphysical isolation. The presence of ‘The Woman’ and the shadows of the secrets of the family reverberate in the isolated and dilapidated estate. The grounds cast shadows and doubts and Kipps can never be totally sure whether the horrors that the town speaks of are real or imagined (and I’m not going to say another word on the matter for fear of spoilers).
The Woman in Black feels like a simpler and more intimate horror of yesteryear. The focus on Radcliffe’s likeable, logical and empathetic Kipps doesn’t allow for you to be quite sure of whether the town is suffering from paranoia, or genuine haunting. It is well-written, produced and acted and for fans of vintage horror, you’ll definitely be entertained.
Flickering Myth Rating: Film *** / Movie ****
Blake Howard is a writer/site director/podcaster at the castleco-op.com. Follow him on Twitter here:@blakeisbatman.
Originally published April 3, 2012. Updated November 6, 2019.
