It’s hard not to associate Daniel Radcliffe with the popular series, Harry Potter; however, as the film progresses, you are so engrossed in the frightening story that you totally forget that it’s Harry freaking Potter! If you’re into gory, blood and guts, Saw type horror-flicks, The Woman in Black is not for you. The eerie, chilling film has the old-school, sophisticated type of horror that emulates classics such as Dracula and Frankenstein. Based on Susan Hill's 1983 novel, the film was set in the faultless northern England; the perfect location for a gloom filled story.
Grieving protagonist Arthur Kipps had recently lost his wife in labor and often had hallucinations of her. His boss threatened to fire him unless he surpassed in a job he assigned him; the job was to sort out the papers of a recently deceased, wealthy old lady in the Yorkshire countryside. Little did he know that this deceased woman was not just any old lady. She once had a nephew, who she had custody of, due to her sister’s mental inability to take care of him. One day the nephew died in a carriage accident and his body was unrecovered because it was stuck deep in the mud, where he had died. The boy’s mother who was institutionalized, sent her sister constant hate letters, accusing her of not doing all she could to save her son. She said she would ‘never forgive’ and upon her suicide, by hanging, she stated that if she couldn’t have her child no one could have theirs.
The town of Yorkshire was silent and everyone was reserved. The only local that would take Kipps in was Samuel Daily who spent his days with his wife who went mad after they lost their son. The locals knew that Kipps was going to the haunted house and that he had seen the ‘woman in black’, the ghost of the dead sister. It was believed that if you had seen her she would kill your child or you, if you were a kid. Although Kipps believed that if he gave her son a proper burial then the woman in black would stop killing innocent children.
Despite his thoughtful actions, she did not care. Like she said “she would never forgive.” At the end of the film, when Kipps was on his way to the train station to meet the nanny and his son - when we thought it was all over- the audience was surprised with the sight of the woman in black! His son jumped in front of an oncoming train and Kipps tried to save him; however, they both died and got to be with his wife who died years before.
I applaud director James Watkins for this movie. All of the actors in this film were on point; the whole thing just worked for me. With the uncanny sound effects and the eerie setting, this is by far one of the best horror films out there. To this day, I am scared of roaming my house alone - I fear I will see this “woman in black” lurking around every corner or hiding in the shadows. Although some viewers may not favor the ending, I think the way the story is told makes up for it.