The Woman in Black | Film review

Like Dracula rising from the grave, Hammer Horror lives. Judging by its first U.S. theatrical release in 33 years, the legendary British production company is taking an ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it approach to reviving its macabre brand. Based on a 1983 novel by Susan Hill—and, more loosely, on a long-running West End stage play inspired by the same—The Woman in Black recalls the gothic atmosphere, foggy U.K. locales and creeping supernatural dread of Hammer’s late-’60s/early-’70s heyday. Plastic dolls stare with their dead eyes. Ravens shriek. Floorboards creak and moan. And—straight from the play, apparently—rocking chairs rock themselves. Because this is 2012, there’s also a generic CGI bogeywoman who likes to appear suddenly in reflections and scream her bloody head off.

In his first post-Potter screen appearance, a dazed-looking Daniel Radcliffe stars as a young attorney who hops a train to an English village with a suspiciously high child-mortality rate. The culprit is a pasty-faced specter with serious empty-nest syndrome. The central mystery is as moth-bitten as a ghost’s shawl, but none of that matters much: Whenever Radcliffe’s alone in the dark—which is often—the film becomes an old-fashioned jolt machine. (Those spooked by loud musical cues should be prepared to have their nerves thoroughly jangled.) From the Victorian trappings to the graveyard ambience, Hammer’s shadow falls heavily over the proceedings. All that’s missing is the black magic touch of Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, though Ciarán Hinds, as the most sensible of the locals, arches his eyebrows with a theatrical flair that does those old hambones proud.