The Woman In Black
At: Inox and other cinemas
Directed by James Watkins
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer, Ciaran Hinds and others
Rating: * * *
Now that the Harry Potter series is over (unless prequels turn up), Daniel Radcliffe fans would obviously be interested in seeing what the actor would do next. Can he be accepted as just a normal character in a true-to-life film?
His first movie outing as a grown-up post-Potter is not in a normal setting—The Woman in Black, based on Susah Hill’s novel is a Gothic horror flick set in a Victorian English village, with all the style and trappings of an old-fashioned spookfest (let’s hope RGV and Vikram Bhatt are watching). Since he is the big name star in it, and practically in every frame of the film, it is a too heavy a responsibility to place on his young shoulders. This is the kind of face-danger-head-on role he has been doing so far; if five films down the line he is still confronting ghosts and ghouls, it would be unfair to the actor, who talent is not in question so far.
The Woman in Black is undoubtedly eerie, but also so faithful to genre conventions that you can see the scares coming long before they do. Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) is a widowed lawyer visiting a haunted house in a gloomy village on business. Local legend attributes the deaths of local kids to a vengeful ghost, angry about the death of her child. He faces a bunch of sullen folk, who don’t want him around. But he needs the job to support his own kid (what a dad at 22?) and so soldiers on. The only half-way friendly person he meets is Samuel Daly (Ciarán Hinds), who has a loony wife (Janet McTeer), mourning the death of her young son.
Like so many such films, it’s the atmosphere, set, sound effects and surly-looking actors who provide the chills. Unlike the newer horror films and slasher movies, this one does not go in for blood-and-gore creepiness, but relies on layering the ominous effects (the startlingly loud sound can get annoying after a while) and suspense so that the goose bumps just do not subside till the end. For fans of the genre, a satisfying watch.