Although Daniel Radcliffe’s brooding face graces posters for The Woman in Black, viewers hoping to find Harry Potter magic in the film are setting themselves up for sore disappointment—the only essence of Hogwarts to be gotten from this film is its foggy intro and outro. But if you’ve been hankering for a creepy, British haunted house film that will give you more than two jumps, then The Woman in Black will deliver. Like Paranormal Activity, it is the kind of film to see with an easily frightened friend and a bag of well-buttered popcorn. And although its trailer sells the movie as a nuanced, psychological thriller, the film is simple, spooky, and fun. Going in with horror movie expectations rather than high hopes for Radcliffe’s budding career will leave you satisfied instead of disgruntled.
In this play-turned-blockbuster, Radcliffe has gone from Harry Potter to Arthur Kipps, a young, widowed law clerk sent to a small town outside of London to work through the extensive will of a recently deceased woman. He leaves his toddler son with his housemaid, expecting the two to join him at the end of the week. Once outside London, the townspeople immediately surmise Kipps’s purpose and urge him to leave. Kipps ignores the townspeople, and makes his way to the shadowy marsh where he experiences the film’s title character for the first time. From here, the story unravels, but with no major twists or extreme depth.
Despite the wandering plot, the youngest actors and director James Watkins’s cinematography fuse to create a chilling setup. In the opening scene, the camera quickly pans across three girls’ feet, crushed toys trailing behind them. With calm faces, the little girls march directly out of their attic window. As the picture fades out, a mother’s anguished scream resounds as a shot of Radcliffe in London fills the screen.
Most importantly, Watkins plays up the haunted house motif, deftly concentrating the film’s action within several rooms of the old mansion. Porcelain dolls of circus acrobats fill the home’s nooks and crannies, clashing cymbals as their wind-up components create unsettling music for the film. Radcliffe never seems alone, the house taking on a character in itself.
The Woman in Black serves up real, nerve-racking horror, so its failure to maintain a groundbreaking plot doesn’t take much away from the film. Though the movie follows a standard plot line and presents a copious amount of “there’s the ghost!” moments, it satisfies as a typical horror movie.
