Review: "The Woman in Black" seems to think startling haunts and being gross is scary

Review: "The Woman in Black" PG 13
Director James Watkins has a thing for haunted houses and islands, and psychotic little towns apparently. The film seems to take place in the 1910s or so, somewhere in Europe, where a young lawyer is sent to this mysterious town to sell a creepy old house, only the resident specter of a widow just won't leave. The townsfolk in the somewhat paranoid delusional hamlet are under the bizarre impression that if anyone visits the house, the curse of the black clad lady will come upon them. Sure enough, people start dying, starting with children. It is never fully explained why the ghost or poltergeist like apparition wants to kill the village children, but her sibling is crazy and haunted by her past, and there is an evil bog, where there is likely a body. The haunted crackling mansion is at times campy, with the kind of jump out at you scares you get from a fun house, and at the same times tries to be gross, with oozing muddy bodies, psychotic drinks and oozing things, and zombie like ghoul things. It seems this is loosely based on a novel actually, or ripped off from it. It has not been read. Dan Ratcliffe (Harry Potter) without his glasses, actually doesn't do so bad. It's just that you keep expecting him to burst into dialog from the other films, which would be meta and never happen. What he has to work with is a bare bones idea and a long gloomy visual spectacle. The problem is not even Harry can enchant the story. Granted it has moments of ghoulish gross, but that's really just because there's not much of a story to go with it.
Review by Adam Browne