The Woman in Black 2012

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: The Woman in Black is a welcome addition to the old canon; renouncing innovation, embracing anachronism, it's almost The Artist of ghost movies. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: The appeal of a good ol' ghost story is strong, and the simplicity of "The Woman in Black" suits the tradition. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A reminder that often what scares us most isn't the gruesome or the gory, but the sounds in a dark house that we can't explain. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: One or two moments of genuinely unsettling horror fail to keep this 95-minute ghost story alive and moving. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: The landscape is dire, the architecture is haunted, children disappear by the dozens and antique toys inexplicably spark to life. That Mr. Radcliffe doesn't is part of the problem. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Without Radcliffe at the center looking scared out of his wits, The Woman In Black would seem even slighter than it already does. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: [It] pushes all the right scary-movie buttons while creating a marvelously creepy atmosphere. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The director, James Watkins, appears to have studied other movies' bumps in the night and accepted the real estate and clammy skin loaned to him by the Hammer studios, which, not incidentally, receive a production credit. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: This is an effective genre exercise, if not an especially inspired one. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The film, a handsome nerve-jangler co-produced under the storied Hammer horror banner, amps up the scares without turning them into something completely stupid. Read more

Joy Tipping, Dallas Morning News: If there is a single haunted house or ghost story cliche that goes unexploited in The Woman in Black, I'd be surprised. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: The Woman in Black is your standard-issue ghost story, gussied up in period garb to make it look like a prestige picture. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: An old-fashioned, tastefully constrained supernatural thriller... Read more

William Goss, Film.com: If this is what disposable modern horror is going to look like, I'll take the classical frights of The Woman in Black over the herky-jerky hokum of The Devil Inside any day. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: A hoot of an old-fashioned British horror film in which being under 10 years old is not a good thing. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: If the story is laid out none too subtly, its straightforward purity is, finally, its greatest strength. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Just about the only trick the movie doesn't resort to is The Screaming Cat That Jumps Out of Nowhere, although there is a pesky crow fond of cawing suddenly in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: A disappointing post-Potter debut from Radcliffe, barely breathing in this musty, creaky chiller. Read more

Bruce Diones, New Yorker: The moody, beautifully composed production raises it above the norm. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: None of it's new, but it's fun particularly because - like those Hammer films of yore - it peoples its great sets with solid actors. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: The director uses time-honored techniques to keep you on edge, every one of which graced Hammer films of yore. But happily for the picture, there's a reason they're time-honored. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Though Radcliffe is our eyes and ears, he rarely speaks. It's not easy to carry an entire film in which your job is primarily to react, but he handles the task with impressive confidence. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: A creaky haunted-house story that's strong on creepy atmosphere but woefully deficient in the scare department. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Schooled in the art of the quiet boo, Mr. Watkins fills the film with squeaking doors and floorboards, pools of black, long silences and an assortment of moldering toys. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: 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. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: The Woman in Black has lovely period atmosphere. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much else besides atmosphere. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: 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. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Not since young Hutter arrived at Orlok's castle in "Nosferatu" has a journey to a dreaded house been more fearsome than the one in "The Woman in Black." Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: The Woman in Black doesn't break new ground, but in its suggestions of fine film ghost stories, it works you over with riveting restraint. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: The frights don't exceed PG-13, and the color never brightens much past gray. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: All I know is, when I had to walk down a dark hallway at home the night I came back from seeing it? Reader, I ran. Read more

Tom Horgen, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A skillful haunted-house film that will soon evaporate from your memory like the ghostly specter of its title. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: There's little that's new, revealing or stylish about this basic-black horror story, but if you've got a Goth sensibility, it might suit you. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Though Radcliffe occasionally seems too stiffly callow to be completely convincing in this grown-up role, the movie is a proficient thriller with a potential appeal beyond the star's fan-girl audience. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: 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. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: 'The Woman in Black' is old-fashioned, ornate, imposing, occasionally creaky - and possessed of more than a few enjoyably nasty surprises. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: What begins as something akin to Robert Wise's The Haunting becomes something more like James Wan's recent Insidious, which makes The Woman in Black a multi-generational horror. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The Woman in Black is a tasteful, old-school frightener, emphasizing suspense and foreboding over blood and guts. Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: Fittingly for the first film shot in England in 35 years to bear the Hammer banner, The Woman in Black competently resurrects that hoariest of horror-movie conceits, the haunted house. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: About as scary as the haunted house your big cousins made in the basement... Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Watkins knows how to make a body jump out of its skin, even if he does use the face-reflected-in-the-mirror/window trick once too often. At the same time, the film is kind of, well, silly. Read more