Warston

The children living in the vicinity of Eel Marsh House have a terrible habit. They keep on killing themselves. The gloomy climes have nothing to do with it. In fact, the youngsters are quite a fun-loving bunch, given their bleak surroundings. The girls play tea-party, the boys build sandcastles; from their perspective at least, everything appears well. But for some diabolical reason, our poor younglings are jumping out of windows and walking into the sea. The adults whisper to one another. They exchange nervous glances. They point to Eel Marsh House, and tell stories about the woman who used to live there. The Woman in Black. The crazy hag who lost her own child in a freak accident, and who – according to local legend – compels infant suicide whenever her ghost is sighted.

The Woman In Black marks Daniel Radcliffe’s first film since Harry Potter. He plays Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor sent from London to handle the estate of Eel Marsh House. The locals give him an icy welcome, and try to send him back south on the next available train. They don’t want him anywhere near Eel Marsh House. At this point, Kipps doesn’t know why, and besides – he doesn’t believe in the supernatural anyway. He’s considered it, following the death of his wife during childbirth, but deemed it nonsense. He finds solace in the village’s sole rational mind, the wealthy landowner Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds). They sip whiskey together in front of the fire, Kipps nodding resolutely as Daily ponders the dangers of the fanciful mind. Daily himself has lost a child, but refuses to subscribe to the local jibber-jabber, for – as he astutely states – ‘If we open the door to superstition, where does that lead?’

Well, Kipps is about to find out. And here we enter Eel Marsh House. The haunted manor is the highlight of the film, a gothic nexus of Edwardian grandeur filled to its crumbly brim with all manner of dark secrets and spooky relics. At any rate, it’s a terrible place to sleep, permeated as it is with incessant banging and bumping. If you’re planning on bringing popcorn to this film, it’s probably best to eat as much as you can in the first twenty minutes: director James Watkins is certainly a master of jolts, and the cinema-goers sat nearby probably won’t appreciate having food flung in their faces.

Yet beyond The Woman In Black’s capacity to empty the popcorn bag, there isn’t a whole lot to applaud. Daniel Radcliffe does possess a certain charm, and it’s true that the Harry Potter star is the film’s biggest draw, but he continues to suffer from a lack of credibility. We never really feel as though we’re watching Arthur Kipps; we’re always watching an earnest Radcliffe, dressed in old-timey garb, trying desperately to muster some kind of gravitas. I wouldn’t go as far to say he’s been miscast, but it’s certainly a stretch to think him the father of a four-year old boy. As such, the parent-child relationship – which underpins the film’s climax – is hard to swallow. None of this would matter if the film were scary enough, but the shocks begin to wear thin. Rather than ramping up the fear factor, Watkins takes us down the Woman’s backstory, and unfortunately, this serves only to detract from the creepy mystery of our ghostly leading lady.

The Woman In Black is rather like a ghost train. Radcliffe is our impassive carriage, taking us on a ride down its thrill-laden tracks. Children crawl from the marsh, music boxes tinkle down dark corridors, and rocking chairs go through severe bouts of enthusiastic self-swinging. The villagers shriek and sob. It’s a little unnerving, but nothing more.

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