Pleasant surprise

For those of you who may be wondering, this film is not a biopic about Johnny Cash’s wife. It’s a horror based on a book which spawned one of the West End’s longest-running and critically-acclaimed plays.

I first saw the play when I was a young lad on a school trip. I was entertained and terrified more than once, although that may have something to do with the proximity to the actors and the eerie qualities of the Covent Garden theatre.

It’s no secret that I’m predisposed to hate Daniel Radcliffe because I lament the Harry Potter franchise. However, since I enjoyed the play on which this film is based, I was willing to overlook that.

To set the scene Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) is a young lawyer who has experienced more than his fair share of tragedy in life. His wife died while giving birth to his son and now he is a melancholy shell of his former self, throwing himself into his work to occupy his mind.

However, his boss is less than sympathetic to his woes and tells him in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t clear his head and successfully complete his next assignment, he’s fired.

Kipps is sent to the coastal town of Crythin Gifford to handle the affairs of Alice Drablow, a woman who recently died under very unpleasant circumstances.

The trip doesn’t start too well for Kipps as his lodging in the town falls through. As he wanders around he notices the town and its people appear very odd.
 
Thankfully, he soon meets locals Sam Daily (Ciarán Hinds) and his wife (Janet McTeer), who offer him a place to stay at their mansion.

They tell him shocking tales of the mysterious ‘woman in black’ who, possibly, killed their young son and many other children in the village.

Although pragmatic to the core, Kipps questions the probability of this scenario because the child mortality rate in the village is suspiciously high.

When Kipps goes to the Drablow mansion to get down to work, things look even bleaker for the poor chap. It’s a gloomy old place in the middle of some marshy wetlands, on a low hill that becomes an island at high tide.

As he’s diligently working away in the mansion he notices a mysterious figure lurking in the shadows, but when he looks back, she’s gone quicker than Kim Kardashian’s stint as a married woman.

More than a little bemused he asks about her in the village, the locals become even more hostile and creepy … and a few more kids meet their end.

At this point, Kipps is eager to just get the job done, so he decides to work through the night at the mansion even though it means he will be stranded there until the tide comes in.

As the night progresses he slowly discovers the tortured history of Mrs Drablow, her husband and her sister. He also begins to discover a dark grief that can reach out from beyond the grave.
 
I was pleasantly surprised by the adaptation but, in my opinion, it still doesn’t hold a candle to the play.

Radcliffe was also a bit of a surprise. He has matured since his days playing the boy wizard and looks remarkably different without his trademark specs.

I’m not sure if he was the best actor for this role, but in all fairness, he was convincing for most of the film.

I will also begrudgingly admit that certain aspects of the story work better with the aid of special effects.
 
All things considered, this isn’t a bad version of a great story and from now on I’ll happily watch any of Radcliffe’s movies where he doesn’t wear glasses.

*Showing in Cineco and Seef II