CERT:15 | PLATFORM: BLU-RAY | RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 10TH
Hammer’s 2012 feature film adaptation of Susan Hill’s classic 1983 Gothic horror novel The Woman in Black became, surprisingly, the biggest box office hit to bear the name of the legendary film production company, pulling in nearly $130 million worldwide from a budget of just $15m. The film succeeded in terrifying its audience despite asking it to accept a wide-eyed and unconvincingly-bewhiskered Daniel Radcliffe as a widower with young children. A far better bet, however, is this creepy, moody – and at one point absolutely bloody terrifying – TV version, broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1989 (how festive), unseen for years and now presented in a gloriously spruced-up HD transfer thanks to Network Publishing.
Lovers of MR James’ ghost stories, famously brought to screen by the BBC in a well-regarded run of spooky Christmas treats, will be right at home here. Directed with relish by Herbert Wise and with a taut script by the legendary Nigel Kneale that makes agreeable tweaks to the book’s narrative (although the author apparently didn’t agree), this is the sort of production we just don’t see on TV any more. Young solicitor Arthur Kidd (Kneale changed the name from the original Kipps as he disapproved of Hill borrowing the character name from Dickens) is dispatched by his boss to the coastal market town of Crythin Gifford to settle the estate of Alice Drablow, a reclusive local widow. But, when he arrives, he finds that the villagers are evasive and reluctant to speak of Alice’s home, the imposing Eel Marsh House, accessible only via a perilous tidal causeway. Kidd is unsettled by the sight of a mysterious, pale-faced ‘woman in black’ who he notices at Alice’s funeral and later in the churchyard but, when he takes up temporary residence at Eel Marsh House to finish up his business in the area, he becomes troubled by strange sounds and occurrences – and one apparition that will quite literally scare the pants off you – as history seems determined to drive him to the brink of insanity.
The Woman in Black is an absolute treat; a lush, lavish and utterly immersive production that is given the time and space to breathe and crank up the drama and tension in ways so many modern productions don’t have the patience for. Eel Marsh House is a grim and imposing place – its approach across the causeway is wreathed in gloomy mist – and the ‘woman in black’ herself is realised with a stark simplicity that makes her all the more disturbing and bowel-loosening. Stunningly restored and supported by a genuinely interesting and chatty commentary by film historian and writer Kim Newman, horror buff Mark Gatiss and actor Andy Nyman (Ghost Stories) who made his TV debut in this production, this is essential viewing for anyone who appreciates classy, intelligent, beautifully-played mature Gothic horror.
The Woman in Black is available exclusively from the Network website.
