The story follows a young lawyer, Arthur Kipps, who is ordered to travel to a remote village and sort out a recently deceased client’s papers. As he works alone in the client’s isolated house, Kipps begins to uncover tragic secrets, his unease growing when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed only in black. Receiving only silence from the locals, Kipps is forced to uncover the true identity of the Woman in Black on his own, leading to a desperate race against time when he discovers her true identity.
Haunted house movies basically live and die by their atmospherics and by the consequences to those poor mortals who come too close to the premises, and The Woman in Black delivers on both counts.
– Alonso Duralde,
TheWrap,
3 Feb 2012
fresh:
The star's job description is that he be able to react convincingly to a variety of supernatural events and to endure being covered in mud. He has difficulty with neither.
– James Berardinelli,
ReelViews,
5 Feb 2012
fresh:
'The Woman in Black' is old-fashioned, ornate, imposing, occasionally creaky - and possessed of more than a few enjoyably nasty surprises.
– Tom Huddleston,
Time Out,
7 Feb 2012
rotten:
It takes quite a time before the pieces of a poisonous puzzle appear, and when they do, they don't always fall into place with clarity.
– Rex Reed,
New York Observer,
8 Feb 2012
fresh:
The moody, beautifully composed production raises it above the norm.