The Woman in Black

This old-fashioned haunted-house movie takes some time to get going, but offers some good scares in the end. Daniel Radcliffe plays a lawyer who goes to a village in the middle of nowhere and, quite illogically, spends a couple of nights in a haunted house. While there, he sees multiple ghosts, including the spirit of a deranged woman angry about the death of her son. Director James Watkins sets the film in a place where it is impossible for Radcliffe’s character to escape, adding to the dread. There are some interesting sequences—I especially like one in which a young boy makes a mud-covered visit in the rain—and Radcliffe makes his character somebody for whom we can root. This film is committed to darkness, so those looking for a good time might want to go play skee-ball instead.