Well, just been to see this tonight.

I'd heard a bit about it and seen a few trailers (well one trailer a few times).

I had a couple of expectations of the film...

1. Daniel Radcliffe wouldn't be a very good actor.
2. It wouldn't be very scary (it's a 12A rating so I could potentially bring my 6 year old sister along to watch it).
3. It would be predictable.
4. There would be a couple of jumpy bits.

I don't think I could have been more wrong!!!

Well, let me clear that up slightly.

Daniel Radcliffe = Harry Potter. Harry Potter = Daniel Radcliffe. It felt like watching Harry Potter playing a part in a film. He wasn't amazing but he was dreadful either. He was good enough to carry the story and the suspense but there is something about him that isn't quite right. Apart from being Harry Potter I mean. He isn't rugged enough, he isn't wizened enough, he doesn't seem experienced enough, he's too innocent to play the part of an adult in a film, let alone a parent. He's also very wooden, he only seems to have one facial expression and one tone of voice throughout the film (IMHO).

Ignoring that I couldn't have been more wrong about the film.

Firstly I didn't realise this was a Hammer production so when I saw that my expectations rose slightly about the scare factor of the film. Still it's a 12A so I wasn't expecting much.

Well, the opening scene of the film is about 3 minutes long, it contains zero spoken dialog and involves three young (around 7 or 8 years old) girls in period dress serving imaginary tea to some dolls in the attic of an old house. Half way through the scene (still with no dialog and not much sound at all TBH) my heart almost stopped and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. This feeling didn't go away throughout the entire film.

I have seen scary films before mainly ones like I know what you did last summer or Scream etc, etc... I have now come to the realisation that these are not scary films in any way whatsoever. I have also seen the likes of The Shining and The Exorcist and while these are scary I can honestly say that they cannot stand up to The Woman in Black.

Whoever wrote/directed this film knew exactly what they were doing and I would put my money on them having studied the psychology of fear. Every single shot in the film was there precisely to get the biggest scare possible. The worst thing was that you would be lead to believe that something was about to jump out of the screen and scare ou half to death but it didn't! That is, it didn't until you decided it wasn't going to and then BAM! your popcorn is all over the floor and your heart is racing.

I can honestly say that I have never been affected by a film in the way that this got to me. I think I managed to breathe around 3 times during the whole film. The rest of the time I was holding my breath in anticipation. My heart was racing, my palms were sweating, I lost count of the number of times I nearly jumped out of my chair and at one point I even grabbed the arm of my friend who was sat next to me.

This film has set a new bar for scary films to stand up to. Absolutely brilliant film!