The Woman In Black Review

Adapting a much loved story is always going to prove challenging and likely to divide opinion among the die-hard fans, but Jane Goldman has something of a great track record in that department, after producing screenplays for the likes of Kick-Ass, and X-Men: First Class. So surely taking on Susan Hill's well-received novel and the popular theatre production of the same name should prove no problem at all?

Despite a few changes here and there, Goldman and director James Watkins have captured the essence of pure ghost story telling; horror and suspense in its purest form, without the necessity of gore. Indeed, Watkins has form in creating a malevolent atmosphere in the acclaimed Eden Lake, but rather than the feeling of violence, he has brilliantly manifested an atmosphere of heightened intensity and potential threat.

Daniel Radcliffe, fresh from the Potter-a-thon, plays the lead character Arthur Kipps, a lowly solicitor who is sent to the village of Crythin Gifford to go through the estate of Eel Marsh House after its owner passes away.

Radcliffe, despite being saddled with the weight of Harry, is truly excellent as the depressed and troubled young lawyer sent on this menial task to an eerie village which must be up there with the ones in Wickerman or Straw Dogs as Worst Village Of The Year. A widower, who has to leave his four-year-old son behind, Radcliffe, complete with stubble, sets to work in this creaky house, aware that there is something amiss with the house and indeed the village.

The Woman In Black has an exceptionally strong support cast including the reliable and younger Dumbledore Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer, who is currently up for an Oscar in Albert Nobbs, and Shaun Dooley who previously starred in Eden Lake, but this is definitely Radcliffe's vehicle and he handles leading man duties with aplomb, throwing off the mantle of Potter within minutes of the start. Harry who?

However, the real star of this is the atmosphere, which pervades the film. Watkins, Goldman and the cast have created a genuinely creepy film drawing on all the classic elements of Victorian scares with a hint of Japanese horror. Get ready for an uncomfortable watch!

****