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Just got back from seeing this movie and I got to say, I had a great time.  It’s been awhile since I’ve a horror film this good.  The last time was… Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.  Okay, maybe not that long, but still.

Our story is about Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer from London who comes to this small village to handle the estate of a recently deceased woman who owned this old mansion on an island.  While there, he has a run in with a dangerous specter known as the “woman in black” who starts haunting him and plaguing the village with a curse.  There’s more to it, but as always, I’ll keep quiet so you can find out for yourself.

Let’s start from the top with the good.  I like the acting in the film.  Daniel Radcliffe is good, but I especially thought Ciarán Hinds and Janet McTeer were pretty solid.  All the technical aspects with the set design, costumes, and the lighting were great.   The atmosphere was really good, reminded me a lot of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.  There were solid scary moments, with some actual good jump scares and great buildup that just twisted my stomach constantly.  The ending was a bit sad, but I sort of liked it.

Sadly, there are of course problems with this movie.  The soundtrack seemed to be in love with jump scares.  It just exploded whenever there was one where a big piano boom or a high violin screech.  Hell, even when there wasn’t a jump scare and an occasionally spooky spot off to the side, it would act up.  Ruin a couple of good scares because of it.  For example, if you saw the trailer, you see Arthur looking out the window and the woman suddenly appears from behind.  In the movie, the soundtrack had a major freak out and just went nuts with its orchestra.  In contrast, there was wonderfully scary scene where it starts off slow where something far in the back moves slightly.  Then it builds up from that the camera approaches Albert from behind and music slowly builds it up.  A shadow moves over his body and the music is at its highest.  He turns around and there is nothing with the soundtrack immediately dying out.  He turns around and sees the picture in front of him with the faces scratched out.  Just great!

Also, the movie had a lot of clichés in it.  The outsider shunned by the people of a tight nit community.  The screaming ghost.  The creepy dolls and kids.  A dead love one that the main character can’t seem to get over that much.  The character is struggling in his job and has to do a job that sends to a scary place in order not to fail.  This didn’t really bother me that much, but I want to note it because it will probably bother some people.

I had a great and wonderful time with this film.  It was great way to start off this year for me for seeing films in the theaters.  Again, like Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, it’s nice to see a scary movie that doesn’t rely on gore, intense violence, serial killers, zombies, or such.  However, while I recommend this film, I think it may better for you to see it at your home.  I saw it with one of the most annoying and frustrating crowds I have ever experience.  They were laughing during intense and frightening scenes.  It was preventing me from really getting into the film like I wanted to.

I give it a 4 out of 5.

I saw this movie; it is good.  Yes, there were some cliches (I was expecting the Woman to blow out the candles the entire movie), but they were all well done.  New rule: If you leave the cinema trembling, the horror movie you saw was good.

I totally agree.  Glad someone around here saw this film.  I thought more people here would see it.

The most disturbing scene IIRC was actually the opening scene

...thus, kinda disappointing