THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012)
JAMES WATKINS
Plot
Movie Mole says: Moles don't really live in houses. We especially don't live in haunted houses - when we hear things going bump in the night, it usually means a worm has tunnelled its way into our lair (yum!) or a farmer is going a bit crazy with a spade. Despite all of this, I was still utterly chilled by Hammer's take on the haunted house genre, The Woman In Black, which is - without a doubt - the best horror of 2012 so far. The story, for those of you who missed it at the cinema, is an old one; when young lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is tasked with settling the legal affairs of the recently deceased Alice Drablow, he finds himself in a remote village up north somewhere. The villagers aren't the friendliest bunch, busy as they are casting furtive glances across the marshland to Eel House, and Arthur soon discovers that his presence is less than welcome. "Don't go up to that there house!" they warn him but, like a rebel, he makes his way across the causeway and into the old and decaying mansion. Cue some serious bumps in the night, a handful of creepy Victorian toys, plenty of inexplicable shadows and a terrorising spectre, known only as the Woman In Black. And it soon becomes apparent that, now Arthur has disturbed her, something terrible is sure to happen... As I said, it's not a new story. The film plays on our basest terrors and, yet, it still feels utterly different to anything we've seen before. Why? Because, like all Hammer films, it's a character-driven horror. When you care about the people on the screen, when you're invested in their future, you find yourself more prone to some serious reaction behaviour when they're terrorised on screen. If, like so many horror films, it's just your standard dumb blonde being taken out by a serial killer, you just don't care - she could disappear in Act 1 or Act 4 and it would be just the same to you. But, with Daniel Radcliffe's careful portrayal of emotionally scarred Arthur, you get someone you want to make it through to the end. Or, at the very least, pull out the Elder Wand and banish all those pesky ghosts back to whence they came! So, for some serious chilling, thrilling AND fulfilling, bag yourself a copy of The Woman In Black from our DVD library today. Double points if you watch it alone...