The Woman in Black stars Daniel Radcliffe in his first post Potter role as Arthur Kipps, a young widower solicitor who travels north from London to a remote village on the North East coast where he has been tasked with handling the estate of a recently deceased woman. When he gets there, Kipps finds the locals to be unfriendly and wary of him but he finds a friend in a local landowner Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds) and begins the process of going through the paperwork of the estate. It is not long however before Kipps gets caught up in paranormal goings on at the old, cut off house of the deceased.
I must admit that I have probably seen fewer horror films that any other genre, including to my shame romantic comedy. I am not a huge fan of the genre and don’t particularly enjoy being scared. This being said, I really liked The Woman in Black and thought that it was one of the scariest ghost-horrors I’ve seen. The films great strength for getting scares comes from its use of sound and reflection. As in all horrors, it’s what you don’t see which is scariest and the film makes good use of glimpses in mirrors, shadows and reflections. The sound and music heighten the tension and come to a crescendo in time with the audience’s gasps and leaps from their seats.
The fact that it is so scary had my wondering why the BBFC had rated it as a 12-A, especially given its lead actor’s previous work. I can imagine that there will be some parents who will see the 12-A certificate and Daniel ‘Potter’ Radcliffe and take their young children along. Had the film been a 15, this would be avoided. I’ve heard Radcliffe say in interviews that he strongly believes that no one under 12 should see the film but with the 12-A rating, it is more than likely that some will. My other age related problem comes with the casting of Radcliffe as a father of a four year old. I understand that families began younger in Edwardian times than they do today (not including Lancashire of course) but in part due to his past and his youthful looks, he just didn’t pull off the ‘adult’ character. I think that Radcliffe is showing promise as an actor though as he was much better in this than in the Potter films. I also think that his choice of project was wise.
The Woman in Black could be seen as a throwback in many ways to the horror films of the past. We have become used to the torture style Saw films and Paranormal Activity type of thing (90 minutes of suspense, BANG! Thanks that’ll be £8 please) and I’d much rather watch this type of horror to those aforementioned. The atmosphere is menacing, helped in a great way by the isolation and fantastic period sets. The story has an arc and a purpose rather than just being gruesome set piece followed by gruesome set piece. The story itself is interesting and the reason for the Woman’s existence, satisfying.
Overall this is a chilling horror that should have you reaching for loved ones (my girlfriend’s fingers still hurt) and jumping out of your seat and should be successful in scaring modern audiences who are more used to gore than chills.
7/10
