pedropeters Herbert Wise's Woman in Black is a blueprint on how a film should be made in order to scare the intelligent audience. Adapted from a book by the same name this Television film has one of the creepiest ghosts ever put on film- and she is there standing in broad daylight! The atmosphere is haunting and the pristine 16mm film stock lends itself well to the tone of the film. A remake starring Daniel Radcliffe was made in 2012 but it does away with everything that this film stands for-a minimalist approach. You should definitely see this movie- it maybe hard to procure but the entire film exists on you-tube.

Paul Evans I have a huge love affair with the Woman in Black, in order I saw the stage play first, then read the book, then this version, and finally the Hammer film. In my humble opinion this is the best version, it is incredibly dark, scary, atmospheric, gloriously produced and beautifully acted. Adrian Rawlins is utterly fantastic in the lead as Arthur Kidd.Pauline Moran adds a mass of fear and terror into the film, her appearances strike true terror into the viewer. The music, lighting and camera-work all crank up the tension and sinister feel too.This adaptation is shamefully overlooked, it deserves so much to be seen by a much wider audience, it boasts a subtlety that the update, which I really enjoyed, didn't have.If you've not seen it, do what you can to get hold of a copy, if you've seen it. The woman in Black is my favourite Ghost story of all time, and this is a tremendous adaptation. Spectacular, atmospheric chiller.10/10

Robskit6 This adaptation of Susan Hill's book made for television is not a big budget CGI fest and is all the better for it. Nigel Kneale's screen play has a delicate touch and allows us to be gently taken along as if ourselves are traveling like Mr Kidd in the train carriage and are placed in an otherwise sleepy little East coast village that has hardly acknowledged any change in a hundred years. Rather than a hammed-up Gothic caricature, this is presented in true Gothic style. We are aware of the absence of city noise, the sound of cars and trains replaced by silence broken by the cry gulls that can sound like the cry of a baby. Dark, fog shrouded days and chill, remote coastal nights. Rachel Portman's score weaves calmly but unnervingly through the sea mists accompanied by the desolate caw of raven and crow that hover over the tilted old headstones and low stone walls. The story is told at the pace of the world that was disappearing every where else at the beginning of the 20th century like a tale recounted by the fire late at night. It is a story of a young middle class man who, at ease with life and the developing new technology around him is suddenly taken out of this familiar environment and made to face the world where the curse of an evil woman still holds sway and kept watch for like sea frets and the danger of the marshes if traveling to the house that lays beyond them. This film begins by showing us an early twentieth century world that now,along with the railway has the motorcar and electric light. There is even featured an early recording device. However, out here in the house beyond the marsh, Mr Kidd knows that the rail tracks can only reach so far and the motor car is no good on the causeway, electric lights can fail. Then, like the eldritch façade of Eel Marsh House, like the devil standing upright in the day,an apparition of a woman dressed in black makes her claim and there is nothing to stand between him and the spectre that has haunted and terrified a generation. Then the darkness begins to fall. Adrian Rawlins is fine as the besieged and tormented Aurther Kidd but it is Bernard Hepton who steals this show as Mr Sam Toovey the rich businessman who befriends Arthur and becomes the steady rock amid the chaos. I believe this film is far superior to the new Daniel Radcliffe film adaption because of all the above. For me there are moments of genuine tension and one scene in particular that in-spite of my being a grown man, had my hair standing on end. We are treated here to a story being told like a tale by the campfire where, at the end of its telling, we perhaps hear something else amid the cry of the gulls and we are dared to peer through the windows of an old house in the marshes and maybe glimpse The Woman in Black. RH.Film quote:'You're a brave lad and no mistake, but your not brave enough….no one could be.

railroadbee I remember watching this when i was around 15 and it really did scare me, obviously if you watch it in broad daylight with other people talking it will not scare you much, but watch it in the right way and it will.If your a fan of horror films that don't contain lots of blood and guts (which I like, but they don't scare me in the slightest) then this is for you.It is the scariest film I've ever seen, the only thing that has come close to it is the stage adaptation of the book which is great.Now its not perfect, but with th money they had and when it was made its as good as it could have been.Actually looking forward to the 2012 adaptation, don't think it will be as well done but still looking forward to it.