What’s that sound? Could it be ‘The Woman in Black’?

Daniel Radcliffe breaks from his Harry Potter shell to turn in a nice performance in the scarily effective horror film, The Woman in Black. The ghost story is a throwback to those great haunted-house tales popularized by Edgar Allan Poe.

Set in the late 19th century, the movie follows Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), a young lawyer who will soon be fired if he doesn’t handle his next case properly. The odds are against him. Not only is he a single father (his wife died in child birth), but his new case involves a creepy old house situated on a small island in northern England. When the surrounding marshland is at low tide, there’s a windy road that connects the house to the nearby village. When high tide arrives, the house and its surrounding plot of land become cut off from the rest of the world.

When Arthur arrives in town, he’s met with those typical shrugs of the shoulders, closing of the windows and furrowed brows. He’s an unwelcome entity in this little hamlet, and the townsfolk, obviously affected by an evil presence coming from the house, would rather not invite any insiders.

His only friend is Daily (Ciarán Hinds), a local man who lost a child in a terrible drowning accident. His wife (Janet McTeer) has never moved beyond the death, and it has caused her to endure bouts of hysteria and sudden violence.

The character of Arthur Kipps is actually the least interesting of everyone involved. Daily and his wife are fascinating, as are the villagers. Heck, I’d even take the woman in black over Arthur. This is not because of Radcliffe, who is a carefully dedicated actor. In the adaptation from the original novel by Susan Hill (the story has also been interpreted for the stage), much focus is given to the atmosphere, the look of the film, the dreariness of the island house and the heightened sense of terror that engulfs this tiny village. By stressing all of these great genre techniques, the central character loses a little exposition, and we’re made to wonder what makes this guy tick.

It doesn’t take long for Arthur and Daily to head over to the house in question and spend a night of horrifying consequence. Director James Watkins knows how to get the adrenaline running, and the landscapes looks beautiful in its cloud-soaked translucence. This is the type of property that instigates an immediate gulp in the throat.

The ghost who provides the film its title is the now-dead owner of the house. She appears in and out of focus throughout the story, and we’re told that she seeks revenge for her son’s needless death. The movie, which runs a quick 95 minutes, doesn’t dig too deep into the legend. Instead, screenwriter Jane Goldman keeps almost everything in the present, and we follow Kipps around like a helpful lantern.

Hinds turns in another effective performance, and McTeer is quite good in her couple of scenes. Radcliffe seems a bit young to play a widower and father, but at least he looks much older than a student at Hogwarts.

But all of these actors are eclipsed by the atmosphere of The Woman in Black. The art direction and cinematography offer portrait-like images, and when these landscapes are interrupted by the ghostly woman, the movie earns its horror credibility. Kudos to a film that can bypass the gore and scare us like a good campfire tale.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• The Woman in Black

• 2012

• Directed by James Watkins

• Written by Jane Goldman; based on the novel by Susan Hill

• Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds and Janet McTeer

• Running time: 95 minutes

• Rated PG-13 for thematic material and violence/disturbing images

• Rating: