Simply Perfect

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I heard this film was just so-so and put off seeing it for years. I'm so glad I gave it a chance. I feel it's highly underrated and unseen. It is beautifully filmed, highly atmospheric and spooky in all the right ways! I like to call these "quiet" horror films. There isn't much dialog or action, just good old-fashioned spooky atmosphere. Don't let it fool you - there are some genuinely good scares and creepy moment throughout! The story is also endearing and so is Radcliffe's performance. The makeup and costuming as well as filming and cinematography are classically outstanding, and will hold up for years to come. I highly recommend watching - especially during October.

Spine-chilling from beginning to end! The suspense simply never lets up. The atmosphere and subtle effects are awesome. Truly nail bitingly brilliant! I absolutely loved the ending, too.

If you have never seen a single horror film in your entire life, then perhaps the Woman in Black is for you; however even the average film goer can identify this is tired, worn out, done-to-death story we've seen hundreds - - if not thousands - - of times before. The story is simple. In the superstitious turn of the 19th Century to the 20th Century, a solicitor/lawyer/whatever has business with a scary old house that local village people fear and believe to be haunted. It turns out the house is very much haunted by a ghost, a woman in black, who inflicts murder and grief upon the village folk because of her sons death at the house as Daniel Radcliffe's character discovers by snooping through desks and drawers whilst staying at the house. The plot escalates quickly, which leads one to believe a large portion of the script had been removed in the cutting room floor. Radcliffe's character catches on and becomes cluey all too soon into the story.The only problem with this film that writes it off as a success is that it is so, so, so very unoriginal. I can't imagine how many times I've seen this type of story before; maybe I'm just neck deep into horror films but as previously suggested, even someone with the slightest idea of horror and thriller knows this textbook ghost story. There is nothing original about the film, which I could overlook if there were redeeming characteristics like a uniqueness in film making, musical composition or script writing but the Woman in Black falls flat in all aspects of this. Furthermore, the jump scares and attempt to create a sinister, spooky vibe are some what embarrassing.With the overall film being taken into account, it isn't actually bad. The style is superb, with brilliant cinematography and quality acting (not so much on Radcliffe's behalf) and what I really liked about this movie is its location setting – the swampy causeway leading to Osea Island and the general countryside of Essex set a lovely and gloomy mood for the remaining hour and thirty minutes. I would never recommend or even bring this title up in conversation, as I can think of plenty of other classic ghost story titles at the top of my head that are far more interesting than this brilliantly developed, but unforgivably run of the mill story.

I don't often watch horror movies, but this was an exception. I don't dislike the genre, I just prefer others. However I had heard good things about this movie and was able to watch it for free so I sat down with some friends and gave it a try. For the first act, I enjoyed it quite a lot. The lead character, played by Daniel Radcliffe, is by far the strongest part of the movie and as the entire first act was focusing on his characterisation I enjoyed it a lot. Daniel Radcliffe was perfectly cast in a refreshingly different role for him; he was realistic enough to believe and a well written character for the purpose of the story. My only gripe is that there were a couple of false notes in Daniel Radcliffe's acting which stood out once or twice, but nothing big. The rest of the cast is agreeable as well; the only other main cast member, Ciarán Hinds' Sam Daily was believable and did his job well, even if his character lacked an interesting enough arc. A major issue with this movie is that it is traditional and clichéd to a fault. The characters are very traditional to such a horror movie (there is of course the frightened locals and the sceptical rich guy who won't believe a word of ghost stories), and there are also the traits and clichés that you might find in any 90's horror movie. The third act is especially weak. It becomes unbearably traditional, in that it lacks originality. However the worst part of the movie by far is the extremely poor ending that not only undermines the rest of the movie but makes everything up to that point look weak. It's over the top, very predictable and perhaps even silly. Still, at least the movie doesn't bore.There are a few other ups and downs about this movie. There are some genuinely effective jump scares, and some good set pieces that work well to create the mood. The writing and directing is good enough, but nothing special. The soundtrack is good and sticks out in multiple scenes, and thus lifting the movie somewhat. Finally there is some poor editing (in particular in the sound department) that needs to be fixed, but nothing too big. In the end you will probably enjoy the majority of this movie, which is helpfully lifted by Daniel Radcliffe, but even he can't save some of the movie's flaws, in particular the very weak ending.