The Woman in Black

What “Psycho” did for showers and what “Hostel” did for Eastern Europe, “The Woman in Black” does for rocking chairs. This is achieved through a scene that chilled me to the bone more than any moment from any recent scare-em-up picture to splatter its way across a cinema screen near you. This scene saw solicitor Arthur Kipps, played by ex-Hogwartsian Daniel Radcliffe, on his lonesome in a possibly haunted house when he hears a monotonous noise, a creaking, seemingly emitting from the nursery room that sits upstairs.

Hesitant but curious, Arthur wanders up the staircase and down a long and darkly lit corridor to inspect the strange, almost menacing noise that seems to be getting louder and louder as he approaches the locked door. He enters the nursery room and discovers that the deafening racket is coming from, you guessed it, a rocking chair. But not just any rocking chair, oh no; a rocking chair that is furiously swinging back and forth apparently of its own free will. And here’s the kicker: there’s no one in the room who could have possibly touched it and there’s no one in the house but Arthur. I’ll tell you one thing: I won’t be stepping foot anywhere near my local furniture store anytime soon, that’s for sure.

Based on the wonderfully chilling novel by Susan Hill and the subsequent stage play and 1989 TV film, “The Woman in Black” is the latest release from recently resurrected film studio Hammer Horror, and is the first Hammer production to be filmed in the studio’s rightful home of England in over 30 years; it certainly proves itself worthy of the title. Under the careful direction of James Watkins (“Eden Lake”) and the skilful writing of Jane Goldman (“X-Men: First Class”), this haunted house chiller-thriller is an expertly crafted return to Hammer’s origins that will remind you of the sheer, unrelenting terror of the things that go bump, creak and scream in the night.

In the gratuitously gothic Edwardian era, Arthur Kipps is a young, widowed solicitor who is summoned to the North East of England to sort out the paperwork of a recently deceased client of his firm. This client was the elderly Alice Drablow, who up until her death lived in Eel Marsh House, a cobweb-decorated remote mansion that sits on an island linked to the nearest town only by a horribly dangerous causeway that disappears on high tide.

Leaving behind his four-year-old son for the week (don’t worry, he’s with his nanny), Arthur sets off to the North East, where it turns out the locals are less than welcoming; they refuse him board, refuse him a room and basically tell him to bog off. Eel Marsh House turns out to be even less welcoming: for one, there’s a ghost in it, and two, there’s a goddamn ghost in it.

Yes, as Arthur quickly discovers upon stepping through the doorway, Eel Marsh House is haunted by the presence of a sinister spectre which reveals itself in the form of a woman clad entirely in black. But Arthur has paperwork to do at the old and decrepit abode and decides to put the fearsome ghostie out of his mind, a task that proves increasingly difficult when he begins to hear things and see things that he really ought not to be hearing and seeing.

This is a classic, old-fashioned ghost story brought to life by some very well-executed modern sensibilities. The old-fashioned stuff would be the spine-chilling atmosphere expertly built up by Watkins and Goldman, as well as the primary setting of the crumbling mansion of Eel Marsh House, a triumph of production design, and the ever-reliable fear of the unknown. The modern stuff, on the other hand, would be the louder, more violent moments, which are fused rather brilliantly with the nerve-racking atmosphere, making for some truly inspired and genuinely terrifying moments of unadulterated horror; I shan’t give any scares away, but be warned that you may lose a few handfuls of popcorn when shit in Eel Marsh House starts to get real.

With a big, dark, Hogwarts-shaped shadow looming over him, Radcliffe gives a very fine leading performance in what is his first film since the “Harry Potter” saga concluded last year. Long gone is his lightning bolt scar and round-lensed spectacles, replaced with an unshaven jaw and a rather impressive pair of sideburns. Yes, Master Radcliffe is now all grown up apparently, and therein lies a bit of a problem; you see, it is an integral part of his character in “The Woman in Black” that he is a widowed father of a four-year-old child, and yet the 22-year-old Radcliffe still looks like a 16-year-old schoolboy, in spite of the unkempt stubble and extended sideburns decorating his fresh face. Radcliffe’s performance is a very engaging and very enjoyable one, but I believe his casting may have been a bit of a misstep. I still love you, though, Harry; you’re bloody magic!

Radcliffe’s co-stars are also on fine form, most prominently the very talented Ciarán Hinds (“Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance”) as Sam Daily, a kind and wealthy landowner who is one of the few to not tell Arthur to go back where he came from, and recent Oscar-nominee Janet McTeer (“Albert Nobbs”) as Sam’s possibly insane wife. There are also some splendid performances from those playing the superstitious locals, too many to mention, but the sense of community and mounting dread that they portray is extraordinarily well managed, and only adds to the intriguing mystery that surrounds the film: what exactly is going on at Eel Marsh House and what do the locals know about it?

“The Woman in Black” is a film that absorbs its audience, teases them, startles them and finally scares the living bejesus out of them, and it does this all pretty goddamn well. While it certainly has its fair share of well-worn clichés (cheap jump scares, haunted house, insanely creepy children’s toys), it is nevertheless a supremely entertaining horror film that succeeds where most fail miserably: genuinely frightening every single person sitting in the audience.

8/10