The Woman in Black follows lawyer Arthur Kipps and his trip to the supposedly haunted house occupied by the woman in black who kills a child in the nearby village every time she is spotted. Let the spine tingling chills commence.

THE ACTORS
When Daniel Radcliffe was cast in this film i had my doubts, because come on, you can’t put Harry Potter in a horror film and expect it to be believable. However Radcliffe is so good as Arthur Kipps that within 20 minutes, i had forgotten he was Harry Potter and was focused on Kipps as a character.

Ciarán Hinds is equally as good in his role of Sam Daily, who lost his son to mysterious circumstances. He is very much there to support Radcliffe’s character and re-enforce the supernatural elements. I believe that Hinds’ character definitely represented me as an audience member, first being skeptical of the whole Woman in Black superstition, yet then coming around to the idea and finally accepting it. The same could be said for me, i doubted that a modern horror could produce genuine fear from me, but it did and i commend this flm for doing so.

THE DIRECTOR
James Watkins has directed this film and the equally great Eden Lake. He definitely has an eye for suspense and sets up shots beautifully. There really is nothing else to say except that as eerie as this film is, it is also extremely beautiful.

THE SCARE FACTOR
This film kept it extremely traditional with the scares, not using blood or gore and only the occasional jump scene, it really just kept it chilling and mysterious, which worked superbly.

This film, although not the scariest i have seen definitely scared me, although the fear wasn’t consistent throughout the film as the whole film was not focused on the haunted house, but also concerned with building a genuine story to support the chills. However i think this was both a good and bad aspect of the film, it was good because i love horror films with a story, but it was bad because it meant the terror was not non-stop and so intense.

CONCLUSION
This is a great horror film with it’s only major flaw being some slight pacing issues. It is genuinely scary, very much different to most modern horrors and is definitely worth a watch. Bonus points if you watch it in a loft/attic, in the dark, alone.

MY SCORE
7/10