The movie hits on all the classic stereotypes of a ghost story. There is a haunted mansion in an isolated marsh thick with fog. There is a past of a haunted suicide and a recent will. The village has a secret. The house has ghostly images, squeaks, creaks, whispers, things that move on their own, and a raven that enters it.

Our main character has a wife who has died in child birth and for some undisclosed reason this is his "last chance" with his firm so he just can't walk away. In the beginning, Radcliffe wears his hair down over his forehead leading me to suspect he really does have a permanent mark in the shape of a lightning bolt.

There is a mystery that is supposed to draw you in, but having seen so many clichés you wonder if this film will offer you anything new.

As the poorly developed Arthur (Daniel Radcliffe) sorts through the papers in the house he uncovers letters which sheds some light unto the situation, and we get to see his bolt free forehead. Radcliffe was neither an asset nor a liability. His agent did him well, but I thought he mustered more fear and terror as that Potter guy in the late sequels than he did in this film. He seems to have trouble with convincing facial expressions.

The strength of the film is in how well it utilizes all those haunted mansion clichés, the lighting...or lack of it, and the detailing of the era. Arthur is played as a rather dull character. There are things that happen to him which would have made me leap out of skin and run out the house, yet he does very little. Also Arthur is quiet as he encounters the unknown, perhaps done to build up the scare factor, but I wonder how that would have worked with a character who talks to the ghost while searching about, maybe with a comical line or two taken from "Hold That Ghost" or someone like Joe Pesci swearing obscenities at it.

Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Safe for the kids to watch on a foggy night if you want to scare the bejesus out of them.

In London, the lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) still grieves the death of his beloved wife Stela (Sophie Stuckey) on the delivery of their son Joseph (Misha Handley) four years ago. His employer gives a last chance to him to keep his job, and he is assigned to travel to the remote village Cryphin Gifford to examine the documentation of the Eel Marsh House that belonged to the decently deceased Mrs. Drablow (Alisa Khazanova). Arthur befriends Daily (Ciarán Hinds) in the train and the man offers a ride to him to the Gifford Arms inn.

Arthur has a cold reception and the owner of the inn tells that he did not receive the request of reservation and there is no available room. On the next morning, Arthur meets the solicitor Jerome that advises him to return to London. However Arthur goes to the isolated manor and soon he finds that the Eel Marsh House is haunted by the vengeful ghost of a woman dressed in black. He also learns that the woman lost her son drowned in the mush and she seeks revenge taking the children of the scared locals.

"The Woman in Black" is a dramatic horror film by Hammer with a good ghost story developed at a slow pace. The beginning is very similar to Bram Stoker's Dracula, when the young lawyer Jonathan Harker is sent to a remote village to a real estate business and has a cold reception by the villagers.

The vampire is replaced by the evil ghost of a woman in black that takes the children from the dwellers. The conclusion is a little disappointing but the film certainly makes the viewer startle many times along 95 minutes running time. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Mulher de Preto" ("The Woman in Black")

Creepy and off-putting, The Woman in Black really is a terrific thriller. It's intended to shock, and in many scenes it is successful. It's a moody, psychologically scarring throwback to the old Roger Corman movies based on Edgar Allan Poe stories, with an amazing adult performance by Daniel Radcliffe as a young lawyer out of his depth.

Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), a down-on-his-luck attorney, is asked to travel to a remote village and find out if a recently deceased woman has left any heretofore unknown wills. It's Kipps' last shot at success, his employer sternly warns him. His journey to the village is eerily similar to that undertaken by Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Something's not quite right with the town, which clearly doesn't want him around, something to do with children being murdered and people blaming a dead woman. You know how it is.

Kipps' sleuthing leads to more and more questions. Who was the woman (ostensibly, his client), really? What relationship did she have with the town? And what of those treacherous marshes, and that long and winding road to the main house that is impassable when the tide is in? Why is it that every time Kipps turns around, a shadow darts away? Understanding that these are all staples of the great horror movies of yore doesn't mean that this film is stealing; it is merely authentically replicating the desolate atmosphere, in which a whisper can signal death.

I entered the theater knowing very little of the movie's content. Was it to be a mystery, and we'd find out who the titular woman was at some point? It is, and we do, but that is only part of the puzzle. The best horror movies, in my opinion, are the ones that build just the right amount of suspense and then pull the rug out from under the viewer. A slow buildup must have a satisfying payoff. Showing the evil the lurks in every other scene dilutes the fright quotient. This movie doesn't do that. It pulls no punches to our psyche.

It is so closely shot by Tim Maurice-Jones, who's best known for his work with Guy Ritchie. Maurice-Jones' style here is to capture almost every shot from Kipps' perspective, thus bringing the audience that much closer to the terror he's supposed to be feeling. Radcliffe, to his credit, never comes off as some innocent lad who's just starting out in the business, and although Kipps is perplexed - much like Edward Woodward's character in The Wicker Man - he is determined to see things through, even though he has strayed a bit from his original mission.

Something is definitely wrong here, and it involves the children. Are they to blame for the nefarious goings-on? Are their parents? No one is saying anything. To make matters worse for Kipps, he has a young son of his own, whose mother died in childbirth and who is coming to visit Kipps in a few days. The grief felt by the parents of the fallen children only heightens Kipps' own fears.

There are several moments that, on the Internet, would be called shock videos. Everything seems normal, and then BAM, something pops out of nowhere. In lesser movies, this might be seen as a crutch, a way to stun your senses to get a particular reaction, but here it all fits in, and it conveys mortal terror. The Woman in Black's identity is revealed very early in the film, so the mystery isn't who she is but why these events keep occurring. Is it all superstition, or is there something more to the spiritual aspect of the plot?

The ending is tidy and satisfying, but it is by no means conventional or predictable. In fact, it opens up even more questions. But more importantly, director James Watkins and screenwriter Jane Goldman (based on a book by Susan Hill) do not take the easy way out. People do not necessarily live happily ever after. Story threads are not necessarily sewn up tight. It is a riveting film steeped in a macabre atmosphere teeming with the potential of death with every slow approach to a corner or a locked door.