The US release of The Woman In Black: Angel Of Death has recently been brought forward to make it almost day-and-date with the UK, and heralding that that decision is a slew of new material from Hammer and Relativity Media. The follow-up to James Watkins' 2012 original stars Phoebe Fox, Helen McRory and Jeremy Irvine, all of whom are in action in this trailer and set of stills.
A couple of curious decisions there. Given the film's British WWII setting, the American-accented child providing the voiceover in that clip's second half feels a bit incongruous to our ears. And there's also an attempt to mine a glorious ghost story from the past: that eerie song about the weeping willow comes from Jack Clayton's 1961 Turn Of The Screw adaptation The Innocents. Whether it's really the record played on the gramophone as the clip suggests, or whether it's just for the benefit of the trailer, remains to be seen.
The new film takes place decades after Daniel Radcliffe’s ill-fated visit to Eel Marsh House. The Second World War is raging in Europe, and teachers Eve (Fox) and Jean (McRory) have been tasked with evacuating a dozen Blitz orphans from London to the isolated North-Eastern coastal village of Crythin Gifford, and specifically to that isolated house on the causeway, uninhabited for years apart from the malevolent shade of a certain Jenette Humfrye stalking its hallways. Also new to the area is RAF bomber pilot Harry (Irvine), posted not far from the teachers and the children. But he has a secret...
Tom Harper (Peaky Blinders) is the director, working from a screenplay by Jon Croker. The Woman In Black: Angel Of Death is out in the UK on January 1. America gets it a day later.
*The lyrics are by Paul Dehn, trivia fans: writer of the screenplays for Goldfinger and most of the original Planet Of The Apes sequels.