The Woman in Black

Hammer Studios, well-known as masters of horror from the 1980’s, return from the grave to once again delight us with their newest tale. Based on a novel, The Woman in Black, another horror classic, was well-chosen; highlighting that although the brand is updated, they still deliver terrifying suspense and spine-tingling scares.

Playing away from his comfort zone, Daniel Radcliffe shows that there’s more to his range than Harry Potter. Having lost his wife in childbirth four years earlier, Arthur Kipps is still mourning and finds it difficult to focus on anything else. His employer is aware of this and gives him one last chance to keep his job, by travelling down to an isolated Yorkshire village to sort out the paperwork for one of their recently deceased clients.

Daily (Ciarán Hinds) is the only local who seems happy to have Arthur around; the rest are only too eager to pack his bags and drive him back to the train station. The village is clearly keeping something from him and Arthur has to bribe a local to take him to the estate. Despite there not being another living soul in the house, it is not long before Arthur begins to suspect that he is not alone. Disappearances, inexplicable noises... There is an evil in the house, an evil that is also wreaking havoc upon the village. But why?

The Woman in Black is exceptionally good at what it does. The slow build-up of tension is punctuated but never dissipated by, the many short, sharp shocks along the way. The film takes full advantage of the features of the medium to generate a rising feeling of unease and a nagging sense of danger.

Definitely not for the faint-hearted, The Woman in Black will shake you to your core.