The Woman In The Black And The Genius Of Nigel Kneale

I have finally seen the 2012 version of The Woman In Black and find my suspicions from the trailer fully justified.The setting has been returned to the Edwardian period of the book instead of Kneale's clever 1920s update.Crythin  Gifford  is depicted  as a village of the damned inhabited by superstitious peasants from a Hammer Dracula  movie and Eel Marsh House should have a sign up over it proclaiming Haunted House.It is a foreboding mansion in overgrown surroundings with everything inside dusty and cobwebbed like the house of Miss Haversham  in Great Expectations.The funeral of Mrs Drablow where in the book and 1989 version The Woman In Black first appears and is taken by Arthur for a mourner is omitted.In actual accounts by people who have seen ghosts they always say that the ghost looked like a real person and only later is it found out that the person is deceased.In Nigel Kneale's version Crythin Gifford is depicted as a prosperous 1920s Norfolk market town and there is a farmers market going on the day Arthur arrives.Likewise Eel Marsh house is a Victorian villa neat and tidy inside and even equipped with electric light from a generator.The spookiness only emerges later it is not immediately obvious.In the 1989 version The Woman in Black is in fact only seen five times in the film.Once in the Church at the start,then once in the churchyard,in the graveyard at Eel Marsh House then when she memorably visits Arthur at the inn in that scene. then right at the finale.The psychological terror comes from the expectation that she might appear rather then the actual appearance.