My daughter is just starting to dip her toes into the genre of horror. I, of course, am doing my best to encourage this interest. She’s not actually much of a movie fan, preferring to watch various videos on YouTube and play games on her phone. So, I have to find my opportunities to suggest horror movies to her. This afternoon she seemed game to the idea and I spent a good bit of time trying to decide what movie I should show her.

She is relatively young so I didn’t want anything too gory, and I didn’t want the awkwardness of watching some sex scene or gratuitous nudity. I shied away from the old classics fearing she’d find them boring. I was leaning towards something from the 1990s, maybe Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer.

By the time I was ready to pick something she informed me that her friend Zoe had invited her over for a hang-out. Disappointed I looked around some old digital content I had on a hard drive and landed on this, The Woman In Black. Ultimately, I was hoping she’d get home from the friend’s house and we could watch something together. That’s what I’d hoped to write about.

Alas, the play date turned into a sleepover and here I am.

The Woman in Black is the second adaptation of the novel of the same name by Susan Hill. It is a gothic horror story complete with an old mansion filled with ghosts. It has some good jump scares and sets a nice eerie mood. It is the type of film that you wind up staring into the backgrounds because often they’ll have something move in the shadows. But its story failed to excite me in any way and I found myself just waiting for it to end.

Arthur Kipp (Daniel Radcliffe) is a young solicitor in Edwardian London. He is still mourning the loss of his wife who died while giving birth to their son, who is now three. He is tasked to go to a small village and handle the paperwork of an old woman who has just died, leaving a large estate to be taken care of.

Upon arrival, nearly everyone in the village warns him not to visit the old house and does their best to convince him to leave immediately. One man, Sam Daily (Ciaran Hinds) is friendly enough and does his best to assist the young lawyer.

The house, of course, is large and spooky, and located across a watery marsh. The only road leading to it gets washed out for hours every day. Despite all the warnings Arthur is eager to do his duty. Almost immediately he hears strange noises and sees strange things, including a mysterious woman, dressed all in black roaming the grounds.

He’ll go back and forth from the house to the village several times over several days. Mysterious things will happen at the house and then he’ll talk them over with Sam. He’ll learn of the town’s many mysteries and the strange goings on at the house.

It is all pretty standard stuff and none of it is all that interesting. I found myself mostly bored with the story. It looks good and it builds a nice mood. The jump scares mostly made me jump. But overall I kept wishing I was watching something else with my daughter.