![]() ![]() Partly owing to its scarcity a mystique grew around it, with copies passed from hand to hand on dubbed VHS and hooky DVDs. ![]() The film was a hit with critics and audience alike, yet while Hill’s book went on to sell millions and become a set GCSE text, and Stephen Mallatratt’s stage adaptation began a West End run in 1989 that was halted by Covid-19, Wise’s film slid into relative obscurity.Īfter briefly surfacing on WH Smith’s own-brand VHS label in 1991 and screening on Channel 4 in 1994, it disappeared. “ a genuine physical reaction,” wrote Nancy Banks-Smith in the Guardian, “as if one layer of your skin had shifted over another.” There, in a remote house at the end of a shingle causeway, he is tormented by terrifying noises and cries – and appearances from a tall woman dressed in black (Pauline Moran), who comes to exert a malevolent hold over his life.įirst broadcast on ITV, at 9pm Christmas Eve 1989, it haunted all who watched it, thanks in part to Wise’s tense, economical direction, and one of the greatest jump-scares in the history of horror. Adapted by visionary British sci-fi screenwriter Nigel Kneale from Susan Hill’s 1983 novella, it stars a 31-year-old Adrian Rawlins as Edwardian solicitor Arthur Kidd, sent to settle the estate of an eccentric widow, Mrs Drablow, on the north-east coast of England. ![]() Few horror films have acquired the cult reputation of Herbert Wise’s TV production of The Woman in Black. ![]()
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