IN its heyday, the Hammer House of Horror was famous for bringing the big bads of Gothic monsters to the silver screen.
Alone in the house, Kipps finds dark family secrets buried in the paperwork surrounding the tragic death of Alice Drablow’s son.
As part of its revival, the House of Horror has released Edwardian era horror The Woman in Black, Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Potter film. Here’s hoping the spectre’s curse is confined to celluloid.
Young father and widower Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) is given one last chance to save his career by the unsympathetic law firm he works for. He is sent to a remote English village to organise the paperwork for the estate of the recently deceased Alice Drablow, owner of Eel Marsh House.
Unfortunately the shifty-eyed locals don’t take too kindly to strangers who want to dabble with the cursed property and try to run him out of town.
It’s down to the only superstition-free villager, landowner Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds), to take him in. But, despite a worrying trend for young suicide in the village, the troubled Kipps is determined to finish what he’s been sent there to do, regardless of any curse.
Eel Marsh House is surrounded by marshland and isolated by the tides, but Kipps swiftly learns that the secluded building hasn’t been completely abandoned by its previous occupants.
Alone in the house, Kipps finds dark family secrets buried in the paperwork surrounding the tragic death of Alice Drablow’s son. Then he catches a glimpse of a woman dressed in black, and the bumps in the night come thick and fast.
I Preferred A Broomstick - Daniel Radcliffe
Based on Susan Hill’s novel and having already seen success on stage, the film varies from the original plot but still retains all the trappings of a good old fashioned Victorian ghost story. With a script by Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class, Kick Ass) and directed by James Watkins, writer of The Descent sequel and Eden Lake, The Woman in Black is a low key and traditional horror, which at times is darkly humorous.
Having already starred on stage in the sexually graphic Equus and the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Radcliffe has already proved to theatre audiences that he can move on from the Boy Who Lived.
The Woman in Black marks his film career’s transition into adulthood. Radcliffe is excellent as Kipps, a man already haunted by his own past. His reserved performance supersedes his youthful looks as the grieving Kipps, a man too tormented by life to scare easily, teeters between quiet determination and outright desperation.
The Woman in Black is superbly eerie from the offset. Following a slow burning opening, the film’s middle section is crammed to the cobweb-strewn rafters with things that go bump in the night, relentlessly urging you towards its genuinely terrifying climax. Regrettably, the final third then disappoints as it never quite achieves the same levels of heart thudding spectacle.
There are a few niggles. The reliance on horror clichés means that Smoke Machine Guy is still the most coveted job in the Hammer-verse. The villagers were just a mob with pitchforks waiting to happen (but still more of a mild hindrance than a menace). The screeches on the soundtrack occasionally undermined the painstakingly built tension in Goldman’s script.
Despite those small annoyances, Radcliffe has made his first post-Potter move well with The Woman in Black, a film that, despite its 12A certificate, is definitely not for kids.
Rating: 7/10
Up All Night? Woman in black, is she on crack?
