The Woman in Black: Angel of Death

Year of Release:  2014

Director:  Tom Harper

Screenplay:  Jon Croker, from a story by Susan Hill

Starring:  Phoebe Fox, Jeremy Irvine, Helen McCrory, Adrian Rawlins, Leanne Best, Ned Dennehy, Oaklee Pendergast

Running Time:  98 minutes

Genre:  Horror

England, 1941: The second year of the Second World War and London suffers under the Blitz, a heavy bombing campaign carried out by German planes.  Teachers Eve Parkins (Fox) and Jean Hogg (McCrory) evacuate a number of children from the city to the relative safety of the country.  They are billeted in the large decaying mansion known as Eel Marsh House, in the middle of a vast, desolate stretch of marshlands.  However, Eel Marsh House is haunted by the malevolent, ghostly "Woman in Black" (Best) who begins targeting the children, particularly the silent, traumatised Edward (Pendergast).

This is the sequel to the 2012 film The Woman in Black, but it has no connection to it's predecessor at all, aside from the titular Woman in Black and the setting of Eel Marsh House, in fact this film is set 40 years after the first.  However Susan Hill, the author of the original 1983 novel The Woman in Black, did work on the story for this sequel.  This is atmospheric enough but it's not really particularly scary at all.  There are a few effective jump scares, but there is nothing here that fans of ghost stories have not seen many times before. The performances are good, particularly from Phoebe Fox as the troubled teacher and Helen McCrory as the stern headteacher.  Jeremy Irvine has charisma as the dashing pilot, with, of course, a troubled past, who romances Eve.  Eel Marsh House is satisfactorily creepy and dismal, and the acres of flat misty marshland make for a bleak, gloomy location which works for the material, and, as so often happens in these films, all the colours look as if they have been washed out.  The Woman in Black herself doesn't really appear that much, but makes herself known in a few effective scenes.  It's not really a very bad film, it's just very predictable, unoriginal and really not very frightening.  Although it is very bleak, and the fact that the Woman in Black targets young children might be upsetting for some viewers. 

She's behind you:  The Woman in Black (Leanne Best) approaches Eve (Phoebe Fox) in The Woman in Black: Angel of Death

The Woman in Black

Year:  2012
Director:  James Watkins
Screenplay:  Jane Goldman, based on the novel The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Starring:  Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer, Sophie Stuckey, Misha Handley, Liz White,
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Horror, thriller, supernatural

This film is basically a good old-fashioned ghost story.  Based on a 1983 novel by Susan Hill, which has already been adapted as a long-running stage play, a made-for-television movie and two radio plays, the story is set in England, sometime at the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century, and tells the story of young lawyer, Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), who has a four year old son, Joseph (Handley), and is still grieving for his wife Stella (Stuckey), who died in childbirth.  Arthur's firm sends him to a remote village called Crythin Gifford to handle the estate of Alice Drablow, who owned a nearby manor house called Eel Marsh House.  The locals are very unwelcoming, but Arthur does beforend wealthy landowner Sam Daily (Hinds) and his wife, Elizabeth (McTeer).  At the cluttered, decaying mansion, Arthur soon finds himself haunted by the ghostly figure of a woman clad head to to in black.  He also quickly discovers that whoever sees the Woman in Black summons a dreadful curse.

This genuinely creepy film relies on chills rather than shocks to scare it's audience.  There is no real blood or gore here, but the film has a powerfully oppressive doom-laden atmosphere, with washed out colour and the bleak, featureless countryside where it's set.  It also features a superb performance from Daniel Radcliffe as the grief-stricken young lawyer, who hints at rivers of pain beneath his straight-laced, quiet exterior.  The rest of the cast are good, but don't really get much of a chance to register as this is very much Radcliffe's show, with the film focusing entirely on his character.  The story sticks fairly closely to the traditional ghost story and the script effectively builds up the atmosphere.  The whole thing is played very seriously and is all the better for it.  It deals with some very serious subjects aside from the supernatural elements.  Ultimately the theme of the movie is grief and how it can dominate or destroy people's lives.  Sticking to the traditional spook story formula does mean that there is little that will really surprise fans of the genre, and, despite being admirably restrained for the most part, the film-maker's can't resist a few over the top CGI moments.  Also some viewers may be put off by the film's slow-burning, chilly approach and lack of conventional horror movie shocks.  However, this is a welcome example of traditional ghostly chills and might provide a few restless nights.

                                       Daniel Radcliffe in The Woman in Black