The Woman in Black

The Woman in Black This is an old-fashioned haunted house movie from Hammer Films that takes some time to get going but gets some good scares in the end. Daniel Radcliffe plays a lawyer who goes to a village in the middle of nowhere and, quite illogically, spends a couple of nights in a haunted house. While there, he sees multiple ghosts, not the least of which is the ghost of a deranged woman angry about the death of her son. Director James Watkins sets the film in a place where it’s impossible for Radcliffe’s character to escape, adding to the dread. There are some interesting sequences—I especially like when a mud-covered young boy makes a visit in the rain—and Radcliffe makes his character somebody we can root for, even if he is dumber than a box of hammers for entering the house in the first place. This one is committed to darkness, so those looking for a good time might want to go play skee ball instead.