The Woman In Black (Film)

The Woman in Black is a 1983 horror fiction novel by Susan Hill about a menacing spectrethat haunts a small English town, foreshadowing the death of children. In 2012, a film adaptation of the same name was released, starring Daniel Radcliffe.

The book has also been adapted into a stage play by Stephen Mallatratt. The stage play was first performed at the Stephen Joseph Theatre-In-The-Round in Scarborough, UK in 1987. It was very well received and moved to the Fortune Theatre in London's West End in 1989 where it still runs today, as well as currently being on a UK National Tour. It is the second longest-running play in the history of the West End, after The Mousetrap.

A television film based on the story, also called The Woman in Black, was produced in 1989, with a screenplay by the distinguished film and television writer Nigel Kneale (best known as the creator of the Quatermass science-fiction serials).

Synopsis

The story centres on a young solicitor, Arthur Kipps, who is summoned to Crythin Gifford, a small market town on the east coast of the United Kingdom to attend to the funeral of Mrs. Alice Drablow, an elderly and reclusive widow who lived alone in the desolate and secluded Eel Marsh House.

The house is situated on Nine Lives Causeway, and, at high tide, it is completely cut off from the mainland with only the surrounding marshes and sea frets for company. Kipps soon realises there is more to Alice Drablow than he originally thought. At the funeral, he sees a woman dressed in black and with a pale wasted face with dark eyes, who is watched in silence by a group of children. Over the course of several days, while sorting through Mrs. Drablow's papers at Eel Marsh House, he endures an increasingly terrifying sequence of unexplained noises, chilling events and hauntings by the Woman in Black. The hauntings included the sound of a pony and trap in difficulty, which were closely followed by the screams of a young child and his maid.

Most of the people in Crythin Gifford are extremely reluctant to reveal information about Mrs. Drablow and the mysterious Woman in Black, and most attempts to find out the truth cause pained and fearful reactions. From various sources, Kipps learns that Mrs. Drablow's sister, Jennet Humfrye, gave birth to a child, but, because she was not married when she became pregnant, she was forced to give the child to her sister. Mrs. Drablow and her husband adopted the boy, called Nathaniel, insisting that he should never know that Jennet was his mother. The child's screams heard by Kipps were those of Nathaniel.

Jennet went away for a year; however, after realising she could not be parted for long from her son, she made an agreement to stay at Eel Marsh House with him. There is an agreement that she never reveals her true identity to him. One day, a pony and trap carrying the boy across the causeway became lost and sank into the marshes, killing all aboard, while Jennet looked on from the window of Eel Marsh House as she waited for them. This was particularly distressing for Jennet Humfrye as she had planned to run away with her son, as they were becoming very close.

Jennet died later, but returned to haunt Eel Marsh House and Crythin Gifford with a vengeful malevolence, as the Woman in Black. According to local tales, seeing the Woman in Black meant that the death of a child would follow.

After the affair is settled, Arthur Kipps returns to London, marries a woman named Stella, and has a child of his own. At a fair, while his wife and child are enjoying a pony and trap ride, Kipps suddenly sees the Woman in Black once more. She steps out in front of the pony pulling the trap and startles it so greatly that it gallops away and collides with a tree, killing the child and fatally injuring Stella, who dies of her injuries ten months later. The Woman in Black has had her vengeance.

Cast

• Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor
• Ciarán Hinds as Sam Daily, a local landowner
• Janet McTeer as Elizabeth Daily, Daily's wife
• Sophie Stuckey as Stella Kipps, Arthur's wife
• Misha Handley as Joseph Kipps, Arthur's son
• Liz White as Jennet Humfrye, The Woman in Black
• Daniel Cerqueira as Keckwick, the carriage driver
• Tim McMullan as Jerome, the local solicitor
• Aoife Doherty as Lucy Jerome, Jerome's daughter
• Roger Allam as Mr Bentley, senior partner of Kipps' firm
• Victor McGuire as Gerald Hardy, a villager
• Alexia Osborne as Victoria Hardy, Hardy's daughter
• David Burke as PC Collins, village constable
• Ashley Foster as Nathaniel Drablow, The Woman in Black's son
• Jessica Raine as Joseph's Nanny
• Shaun Dooley as Fisher, village innkeeper
• Mary Stockley as Mrs Fisher
• Sidney Johnston as Nicholas Daily, Daily's son

"The Woman In Black" Download Free

On 10 April 2011, during the Kapow! Comic Con in London, the first official teaser trailer was unveiled.^[21] Another trailer of the film was attached to some showings of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 in July 2011, and a brand new worldwide teaser, depicting more footage from the movie, was released on 17 August 2011.^[22] The official UK teaser poster was released on 24 August 2011.^[23] The full UK trailer was released on 14 October 2011.^[24] CBS Films released a one minute teaser at Spike TV's Scream Awards on 18 October 2011, and a day later released a teaser poster.^[25] On 11 January 2012, Momentum Pictures released the official theatrical poster,^[26] while on 12 January, MTVreleased a minute clip of the film.^[27]
Shortly before the release of the Woman in Black, the book was released in a new cover of actor Daniel Radcliffe and paperback covers, alongside the film for marketing.


The film will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on 18 June 2012 in the United Kingdom,^[34] and in the United States on 22 May 2012.^[35]