The Woman in Black
The three
lovely Fisher girls, at play in their attic nursery, drop their toys and walk
purposefully to the window ledge, whence they jump to their deaths. They are
thought to be the victims of Jennet Humfrye, whose son died in a cart accident
in the swamp near Eel Marsh House, the home she shared with her married sister
and brother-in-law. The villagers of Crythin Gifford believe that, ever since,
this woman in black has willed the deaths of local children in vengeance for
her son. So when the young solicitor Arthur Kipps comes from London to the
desolate eastern coast of England to settle the affairs of Eel Marsh House, the
townsfolk’s every glance screams, Leave here! When he begs for a
room at the local inn, the owners — Mr. and Mrs. Fisher — brusquely install him
in the attic room where their little girls leapt to their deaths. And when
another child dies in his arms, they fear that he somehow carries the plague of
the Woman in Black.
Harry Potter —
rather, Daniel Radcliffe — to the rescue. As the title character of the
eight-film movie franchise, he battled another undead adversary, Voldemort, who
had killed Harry’s parents when he was a baby. Now, in the sumptuously scary
film of The Woman in Black, Radcliffe’s Arthur grieves as well: his
beloved wife died in childbirth, leaving him with a son, now four, and a broken
heart. So, long before he arrives at Eel Marsh House, Arthur has
been haunted by the unquiet spirit of a young mother. Perhaps that is why,
unlike the villagers, he has actually seen the Woman in Black parade the Marsh
grounds. We’ve had a glimpse of the specter too: as he gazes from a window of
the house, there she briefly stands, right behind him.
The Woman in
Black is a ghost story so observant of the Gothic-Victorian
tradition that its biggest shock is that it was written in 1982. An instant and
enduring success, Susan Hill’s novel inspired a play version that opened in
1987 and is still going strong, making it the longest-running show in West End
history after Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, now in its 60th year. In
1989, the Hill novel became a British TV film, with Arthur played by Adrian
Rawlins — who in the Hogwarts movies played Harry’s father James. Now
screenwriter Jane Goldman (previously the movie adapter of the graphic novels Stardust and Kick-Ass)
and director James Watkins (the assured sado-thriller Eden Lake) have
taken over this venerable property and installed Radcliffe as the tenant, hero
and victim. Going through the family papers and seeking an answer to Jennet’s
mystery, he’ll need to stay there alone for two days and nights — if he lives
that long.
Hill has said
that before writing The Woman in Black, “I sat down and made a list of
ingredients, rather like baking a cake — a list of what you absolutely need in
a ghost story — and then I worked from there.” Among the obvious antecedents
are Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, with the haunted children, the
haunting adults and the innocent outsider, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula;
Arthur, the young solicitor who falls under the spectral spell of an eerie
mansion in a remote land, is a first cousin to Stoker’s Jonathan Harker.
To these Hill
added story elements that kids might remember from their first visit to a
haunted house: the bedroom doors that snap shut, the rocking chair tipping
vigorously with no visible occupant, the fetid breath like damp seaweed on the
necks of the unwary.
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