The Woman in Black

The book is sinister. The stage play is scary.

The film is devastating.

Pauline Moran's brief appearances as The Woman fill the whole film with a sense of doom and terror. She's seen in the background, almost out-of-focus, a few times. The leering, grimacing expression, white face and red eyes, on the rare occasions they fill the screen, will make your heart stop with terror.

No gore and splatter. No blood, swearing and screaming. This is an old-fashioned ghost story. It has a perfect, atmospheric representation of an isolated community, haunted by something so awful that the locals cannot bear to mention it. The innocent newcomer landed in the middle of this terrorised community quickly gains the audience's sympathy but ... wait ... is that the ghost? No. It's only a shadow. ... Hush ... is that the ghost? No. It's only a creaking floorboard. Here she comes. She's coming to get you. You have no escape.

She is the very image of evil, and she wants to make others as unhappy as she herself was. She can pick her moment. She can pick her place. One you are in her sights, you will not get away. The Woman In Black does not rush to tell you the whole story. It doesn't spoil the shocks by revealing everything at once. Little hints to The Woman's origins sneak out one by one, and taint the entire film with dread.

Several other reviews mention The Woman's biggest appearance, and I can only repeat the other comments. One of the most frightening, shocking, unexpected, sudden moments that telly has ever produced. I found myself pushing further and further back into my chair, trying to get away from the television screen.

Simple, old fashioned story telling, with a great story and great performances. Unforgettable.

"The Woman in Black" has Adrian Rawlins as London solicitor Arthur Kidd, who is sent to a remote seaside village to sort the estate of a recently deceased recluse. While staying at the woman's mansion on the rural marshlands, he is tormented by the sounds of a phantom carriage crash, and the apparition of a mysterious woman in black who roams the property— but that's the least of his worries.

Based on Susan Hill's novel of the same name, "The Woman in Black" has been hailed and beloved by fans, and rightfully so in many ways. It's not a perfect film, but it's an almighty well-done ghost story. In the vein of other Gothic chillers such as "The Innocents" or "The Haunting", the film is indebted to a classical style— heavy on plot and mood, though punctuated by a series of legitimately scary moments that are strung along a sombre and downbeat narrative.

A very handsome (if I may so so myself) Adrian Rawlins leads the film as our protagonist and does a fine job here, while Pauline Moran plays counterpoint as the mysterious and perhaps malevolent Woman in Black. Originally broadcast on Christmas Eve 1989, the film definitely has a "made-for-TV" feel to it, but the cinematography is slick and classy, and the visual elements of the film are on par with the unusually sophisticated supernatural narrative arc. The downbeat ending here is just the icing on a very ghastly cake.

Overall, "The Woman in Black" is essentially the made-for-TV equivalent of classic Gothic chillers such as Jack Clayton's aforementioned "The Innocents"— that's not to say it's a bad film by any means, but rather that it runs in a similar vein, albeit with the budget quirks of a television production. Despite this, there are several remarkably startling moments that have frightened audiences for decades now, and these moments have earned their notoriety, as they are still well-crafted and effective to this day. As a television production, "The Woman in Black" is a sophisticated and nicely crafted ghost story that holds its ground against its more innovated, big-budget peers. 8/10.

The Woman in Black, which is about a solicitor who was sent to a supposedly haunted house to settle a woman's estate after she died, is a good example of a classic bone-chilling ghost story. Although it is evident the movie was shot on a limited budget, the minimal special effects actually add to its merit. The Woman in Black centres its atmospheric horror factor on subtlety and feelings of suspense and dread, rather than CGI or gore.

Shot in England, the setting couldn't have been more perfect. The house that is the core of the movie is fittingly eerie and inspires feelings of fear and anxiety, as a good haunted house should. The music creates a heart-pounding mood that magnetically draws you to the edge of your seat and causes you to watch the rest of the film through the cracks between your fingers. It is the perfect accompaniment to the terrifying events both on screen and in your imagination. The acting is as understated as the rest of the movie, yet the talented actors make it very easy for viewers to be transported into the world of the supernatural and never doubt it once.

This movie definitely deserves the cult following it has acquired, which is made complicated due to the fact that there are no new legitimate copies being sold. Although this could have been just another low budget made-for-TV movie, The Woman in Black is a new, refreshing take on the old "things going bump in the night" idea.

Genuinely original in that it denies us the closure we expect to be delivered like the tide; a Tales of the Unexpected meets Hammer House but with the makeup budget spent on a mistery generator.

I first saw The Woman in Black when I was ten years old. It was broadcast on Xmas eve 1989. It frightened me senseless and it has never really left me.

It is a really wonderful film and a delight to know that there are some really good ghost stories out there. The whole atmosphere is made tense by the fact that you never know when something truly awful is either going to appear or going to happen and your are treated to the same amount of terror that the main character, Arthur Kidd, is experiencing which is very rare for any film to get the audience involved in that way.

You must see this film, track it down and view something that is so terrifying that you won't sleep for nights on end.

It is a shame that the film is no longer available on video in Britain and is hardly ever shown on television now so come on somebody get this out on video or even better on DVD as it is a classic and defines how all ghost stories should be made.