About.com Rating

The Woman in Black was a surprise hit for Hammer Film Productions in 2012, which means of course that the ceaselessly exploitive movie industry couldn't let it rest on its laurels and had to come up with a sequel, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, reaching well beyond the scope of the original book upon which it was based. It's no surprise, then, that it comes off as completely superfluous.

The Plot

In 1941, during Germany's Blitz bombing campaign against the UK, teachers Jean Hogg (Helen McCrory) and Eve Parkins (Phoebe Fox) evacuate a group of their young students from besieged London hours away to the relative safety of the remote, abandoned Eel Marsh House. But soon after they arrive, Eve senses a darkness about the house and sees a shadowy figure appear and vanish before her eyes. The house, it seems, is haunted by a woman in black who has set her sights on a recently orphaned student named Edward (Oaklee Pendergast). She seems him as a replacement for her own dead son and is prepared to kill anyone who stands in her way. But Eve, tenacious and idealistic, won't abandon Edward so easily and seeks to uncover the mystery behind the ghostly figure in order to save the boy and his classmates.

The End Result

I wasn't as big a fan of the first Woman in Black film as some people, finding the mystery to be simple and overly familiar, but the sequel really phones in the story. The tale of the titular woman's past is almost an afterthought, worthy of just a cursory mention, and the new surrounding plot points do nothing to expand her mythology.

Perhaps the blandness of the new storyline has something to do with a hurried writing process that may have seen it re-conceived multiple times. In its early stages of development, the plot was reported to revolve around a young couple, and then it was said to feature Eel Marsh House after its conversion into a mental hospital, with Eve as a nurse.

With such a seemingly jumbled origin, it shouldn't be a shock that the film comes off as safe and perfunctory. It ends up playing like a poor man's Mama, with scenes serving only to add to the jump-scare quota rather than developing a robust plot. (A sidebar featuring an old blind hermit feels particularly extraneous.)

As with the first movie, the setting and the spectral figure are the biggest draw, but both have become overly familiar and though attractively shot, the film's attempts to scare feel sterile -- especially the bland CGI closeups of the ghost's face. To paraphrase old motherly advice, if you don't have anything scary to say, maybe you shouldn't say anything at all.

The Skinny

• Acting: B- (Fox leads a solid, little-known cast.)
• Direction: C (Attractive but bland and sterile.)
• Script: D+ (Full of cheap, clichéd scares and genre tropes; fails to advance the existing mythology.)
• Gore/Effects: C (No gore; lazy use of CGI.)
• Overall: C (Competent but predictable and unnecessary.)

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is directed by Tom Harper and is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for some disturbing and frightening images, and for thematic elements. Release date: January 2, 2015.