The Woman in Black is unashamedly a throwback film: not only was it developed by Hammer Films, the newest iteration of the famous horror studio that created classic films like The Curse Of Frankenstein and The Mummy, but it’s also a film that consciously hearkens back to an earlier era of horror, with more unexplained phenomena and scary noises from off-screen than butcher knives and serial killers, while still retaining the option of actually showing you the source of those noises when the time comes. The result is a movie that may be an acquired taste for some, appetites for scary films being so varied nowadays. If you’re willing to accept a slow-moving plot in favor of heaping servings of atmosphere, though, The Woman In Black plays on its differences from the last few years’ worth of horror films to serve up something that many may find a far richer experience.
The Woman In Black has had no shortage of previous incarnations, so to speak, being based on a novel that itself received a stage play (in production for almost 25 years now in the UK) and a made-for TV movie in the '80s. This filmed adaptation, from director James Watkins (of Eden Lake, a film that’s genuinely difficult to watch, for various reasons), tweaks some of the plot details to compact the goings-on down to a svelte 95 minutes. It feels like a longer film than that, thanks to a relatively slow build-up, but that’s an entirely good thing: few recent films take the time to build up such a slow burn of dread before flipping the terror switch into the “up” position.
As the lead, Daniel Radcliffe gives little hint as to his long-term post-Potter star potential; he comes across as being a bit young for the role of Arthur Kipps, grieving widower, still tormented by the four-years-past death of his wife, but does an able job in the role for that. Left with a son and crippling depression, he’s given an ultimatum by his boss at a law firm: travel to a rural county, clean up the legal papers of recently deceased Mrs. Alice Drablow, and find someone to purchase her estate, ominously named the Eel Marsh House. It’s a dreadfully ill-maintained property in the middle of the titular marsh, where the tides cut off access to it for a good portion of the day.
Watkins wastes little time in establishing the torment behind the eyes of Kipps, and Radcliffe does a fair job of at evoking some kind of bone-deep fatigue early on the in film, as it's established that he occasionally sees his dead wife's ghost, and wishes for little more than suicide, his son being the only thing that keeps him kicking. The film, as well as the book, is set sometime early in the 1900s (with the village near the marsh possessing only a single car), a time when seances and spiritualism were in a notorious vogue in England, and many believed that communication between the living and the dead was possible. Certainly the townspeople in Crythin Gifford, the town nearest Eel Marsh, seem to be convinced that nothing good will come of Kipps’ visit, and he spends the first fifteen minutes or so of the film being stonewalled and not-so-politely being asked to return home. The only villager willing to accommodate him is one Sam Daily (Ciaran Hinds), possessor of that single car and perhaps the only man around who gives little heed to the stories of the supernatural.
The plotting here is best left discovered by an audience willing to wait for clues to be spooled out for it, and the film takes its time doing so, eschewing the recitation of facts in favor of that atmospheric build-up mentioned before. Every day on the marsh is dull and gray, children loom out at Kipps from upstairs windows and are forbidden from being on the street when he’s around, and the adults in the village seem to accuse him with their eyes of bringing some kind of evil down upon their heads. He quickly learns of the many cases of child suicide that have plagued the village over the years, all of which have occurred after someone sees the horrible apparition of a veiled woman in black. Needless to say, Kipps starts seeing a lot of her, which in turn leads the children of the village to start the self-harm anew, most cases of which are directly witnessed by Kipps, a fact that doesn't exactly endear him to the populace any further.
All of this is, of course, tied to the house in the marsh, where none of the villagers dare tread, but where Kipps must go if he wishes to do his duty. This isn’t one of those psychological horror films like The Innocents, where we’re not sure if Kipps actually sees things, or if he’s crazy: it’s established pretty early on that there’s something extremely malevolent at work in the house, and in the village, and it doesn’t take Kipps long before he begins coming across the titular woman, both during the day and, more terrifyingly, over the course of a long night spent in the house.
Radcliffe is fine in his role, which is mainly to act as though he’s retaining some semblance of sanity through the lengthy nights spent in the house and attempt to find some way to calm the woman in black’s rage, but the real star here is Watkins’ direction. This is a horror film of the old school, and he even seems to call back to one of the famous shots of The Innocents when the woman in black first appears, seen through a window at a great distance. Scary things are much less scary when actually described, of course, but Watkins manages to use all of the tricks of the trade when establishing his house of horror: things move imperceptibly in out-of-focus backgrounds of shots, shadows flit across mirrors in the corner of the screen, handprints appear on glass, and, of course, unexplained knocking sounds echo from locked rooms for which there is no key.
Watkins knows the horror game and exploits audience expectations with a degree of skill that I haven’t seen recently: some buildups lead to jump scares, sure, but more often than not, they work. And, with the air of a trickster enjoying himself, occasionally Watkins will establish a buildup that leads to an empty room, forcing you to simply remain on the edge of your seat for a little while longer. Or, occasionally, a jump scare will lead to a minor jolt, leading directly into another jump scare. Watkins plays with tempo as well as as any horror director of the last few years can lay claim to, and if you let yourself be wooed by the atmosphere of the film, you’re going to get both jump-in-your-seat moments and the kind of bone-deep chills that seem so rare in horror nowadays.
Of course, as I find myself reminded every time I see one of these films on the opening weekend, many audiences nowadays treat films like this as more of an open-mic night than an actual filmgoing experience. Perhaps some people enjoy sitting through movies where everyone feels licensed to yell at the screen and mutter speculations as to what’s going to happen next to their seatmates, but if you don’t, you’d be well advised to wait a week or two before catching this film, as has been the case with almost every scary movie of the last few years.
It’s mildly unfortunate that Watkins can’t help but tip his hand later on in the movie, as the ghosts become more corporeal and concrete; he seems to delight in directly showing you what was previously implied, and begins resorting to special effects and creepy makeup to do so. Perhaps that’s what the film was always building up to, but it doesn’t work as well as the shadow games that form the heart of the film. Sometimes a woman is more appealing in a striptease than when she’s actually nude, and while The Woman In Black is one of those women, at least the tease here lasts long enough to satisfy.
