Movie Review of The Woman in Black (2012)

The Woman in Black has raised goose-bumps on the arms of generations of ghost story fanatics.

It's been a novelette, a stage play, a made-for-TV film, and a long-running West End stage show. Now it's hit the silver screen in a movie sanctioned by author Susan Hill; and starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame.

As a child, I read the book. As a teenager, I saw the television drama. As a young adult, I watched a theater adaptation. It was as a long-term fan of the tale itself, that I bought my nachos and settled down in the cinema. I wanted to see what Hammer Film Productions had done to one of my favorite ghost stories.

Would it live up to expectations?

There is a subtle psychology at work in Susan Hill's supernatural telling.

The chills that run down your spine, as you read her words, aren't so much in what actually occurs. It's in what you almost see and the places into which your imagination is turned.

Such a thing is difficult to translate from the page into other media, when so much relies upon set and setting.

Arthur Kipps is a young, ambitious lawyer, in an age of Edwardian propriety. As a junior staff-member of a legal office, he is sent to the north of England to oversee the execution of a deceased client's will.

Against a back-drop of marshy wilderness, he encounters villagers close-lipped and wary of the large house belonging to the late Mrs Drablow. It has to be reached via a causeway stretching right out almost into the sea. The tides cut it off twice a day.

It doesn't take Arthur long to discover that it's not the building itself that's the problem. It's the secret that it harbors; and the curse that accompanies its ghost.

There would be too many spoilers, if I continued from here. I can say that I entered the cinema wanting a film that was true to Susan Hill's atmospheric suggestibility. The fact that she had seen and approved the script tipped the balance for me deciding to watch it on the big screen.

From the stage show, I wanted the rocking chair scenes to be done properly. They were always the ones that scared me silly. I also knew that an unsympathetic Arthur, an over-acted Woman in Black or comedic villagers could kill the ambiance and so the story.

It seems that I needn't have been concerned at all. It was different to what had gone before, but it wasn't bad.

As a huge fan of the original story, I wanted to see a film that captured it precisely. Therefore my heart sank at the opening scenes. I didn't recognize any of this from the tip of Susan Hill's pen.

However, as the movie progressed, my doubts were put to bed. There is a lot going on which draws out aspects only alluded to in the novelette. There are some parts downright inserted. But on balance, it's as close to the mood of the story as anything that has gone before.

As far as possible, even minor character names and personae have been preserved. Some might have developed larger roles, but that was ok. There was nothing here that jarred with anything that Ms Hill had created. It merely drew out the back-drop and moved it center-stage.

This is particularly evident in the sub-plot of the danger to the village children. It is there in the original story (page 130 in my copy of the 1983 Penguin edition, if you don't believe me), but almost as an incidental piece of the overall psychological puzzle.

In the film, it's in your face throughout. The dialogue is lifted straight from the page, but elaborated upon. Then time and again, aspects of it are revisited. It constitutes much of the action, turns up on the trailers and in the promo posters. 'What did they see?' is one of the many tag-lines attached to The Woman in Black now; and that relates to the children, not Arthur or his own encounters at Eel Marsh House.

It would be a lie to say that the 2012 film version is a faithful adaptation. Yet I came away with the feeling that everything, from script to production, had been done by people who were fans too. I wasn't disappointed by the deviations. In fact, many of them I grudgingly conceded might even have improved upon an already classic tale.

I confess that I didn't know in advance that this film was made by Hammer Film Productions. If I had known, I might have thought twice about seeing it at the cinema.

Don't get me wrong, I love Hammer Horrors for what they are, but I would have unfairly pre-judged the genre as inappropriate for this story.

As a child growing up in the 1970s, I sneaked a look at more than my fair share of this company's film output. I have enduring memories of Vincent Price's Dracula; dark, haunted houses; screams and buckets of blood; then buxom beauties, with heaving chests, waiting for swash-buckling men to save them from the monsters.

All of which did not suggest to me a company capable of matching Susan Hill's psychological subtleties and 'did that really just happen' mood setting. Hand on heart, I will admit that I was wrong. They did pull it off.

There were a lot of effects and angles which did recall those legendary, vintage British horror films. If I'd remained ignorant of the fact that Hammer produced them, then I'd have assumed a cultural influence. But they seemed more sophisticated, like the company had grown up along with myself.

The movie is rated 12a in Britain, which means that under twelves can only view it in the presence of an adult. That seemed about right to me. The gore is implied, rather than shown; while the frights are more of the jump out and startle you variety. 

Hammer applies the same restraint that Susan Hill showed, in that many opportunities for being startled are skipped. This simply adds to the tension, as no-one is prepared when things actually do occur.

There were still more cheap tricks than I would have liked, but then I do prefer my ghost stories to be more understated. Nevertheless, I'll forgive them the few clunkier moments, because I left the cinema not disappointed by my time within it. Overall, they did Susan Hill proud and provided a wonderfully spine-chilling retelling of The Woman in Black.

Disappointingly, for a movie based on a book written by a woman, it doesn't pass the Bechdel Test.

Devised by Liz Wallace and publicized by Alison Bechdel, these three questions look at the representation of female characters in any film.  Woman in Black actually passes on the first of these questions, but fails on the remaining two.

There is more than one named woman in this movie.  However, they don't talk to each other. 

Ok, there is a possible scene that could be crow-barred into passing the second criteria (that they have a conversation).  Jennet writes a letter to her sister.  It's read out by Arthur. No, I retract it.  That's not a discussion.  It's one way at best.

But even if it was to get through, then the third and final point would sink it in the mud.  That letter is all about a male character.  The Bechdel Test asks that the conversation be about anything but men and/or boys.