The Woman in Black

2012 - Dir: James Watkins
Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 13th July, 2012

Not since young Hutter arrived at Orlok's castle in "Nosferatu" has a journey to a dreaded house been more fearsome than the one in "The Woman in Black." Both films (and all versions of "Dracula") begin with the local townspeople terrified of a residence and the legends surrounding it. In this case, a young, Victorian-era lawyer named Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is visiting a haunted house in the north of England, which can be reached only by a single-track road on a long, narrow causeway that lies so low in a brackish sea that the waters lap its edges…. And there lies the key to this movie’s success. Director James Watkins realises that the house and its brooding atmosphere is the star - so it matters little that the former wizard playing Kipps seems a bit young to be a fully qualified lawyer with a four year old son. The plot creaks… but so do the floorboards and with every creak, rustle and sque-e-e-eak the tension is ratcheted up. We’re being manipulated, our subconscious feelings are being mined, our primitive fearful souls are being goaded… and, oh, how we love it!
This is in the great cinema tradition that goes right back to the early days of motion pictures when movies played at fairgrounds and people paid to be scared out of their wits in by the flickering images of trains heading towards them. These days we take a bit more scaring but the principles are still the same. We know it’s nonsense, we know we can’t be harmed but, if the right buttons are pushed we all jump in our seats and want to run away and hide. This film, like all good horrors, seeks to frighten but not revolt. There’s no blood and gore… just suggestion, a little leading, a hint of a movement… the mind will do the rest. Have a safe journey home… but don’t be tempted by that short cut down a dark lane…..

The History of The Woman in Black….

• This ghost story was first published in hardback in 1983 and has gone on to have a remarkable life over the following decades in various paperback incarnations and as a set book for GCSE and A Level.
• The book was adapted into a stage play by Stephen Mallatratt which was first performed at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough in 1987. It was very well received and moved to the Fortune Theatre in London's West End in 1989 where it still runs today, as well as currently being on a UK National Tour. It is the second longest-running play in the history of the West End, after The Mousetrap.
• A television film based on the story, also called “The Woman in Black”, was produced in 1989, with a screenplay by the distinguished film and television writer Nigel Kneale (best known as the creator of the Quatermass science-fiction serials). There have also been two radio versions of the story.