The Woman in Black Cast and Characters

In an English village, Crythin Gifford, in 1889, three girls are having a tea party. They suddenly look up at something off-screen and, as though possessed, jump to their deaths from the bedroom window.

In Edwardian era London 1906, the wife of lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) dies in childbirth.

Four years later, Kipps is instructed to visit Crythin Gifford to retrieve any relevant documents left by the deceased owner Alice Drablow. And as a prelude to orchestrate the sale of Eel Marsh House, an isolated and desolate estate on the marshland. Upon arrival, Arthur finds many of the villagers rather unwelcoming, though he finds sympathy in a wealthy local landowner Samuel Daily (Ciarán Hinds).

The next morning, Arthur goes to meet his legal contact, Mr. Jerome , who tries to hurry him away from the village. Arthur, undeterred, travels to Eel Marsh. There, he is distracted by odd noises, a bolted nursery, and the appearance of a spectral entity in funerary garb. He hears sounds on the marshes of a carriage in distress and a screaming child, but sees nobody on the causeway. He later attempts to alert the village constable, who dismisses him. Two children enter the station with their sister Victoria, who has ingested lye, but she subsequently dies almost immediately afterwards.

That night, Sam reveals that he and his wife Elisabeth (Janet McTeer) lost their young son to drowning. Elisabeth suffers from fits of hysteria, which she attributes to her boy speaking through her. When Sam attempts to drive Arthur to Eel Marsh the next day, a fleet of local men attempt to drive him off. Victoria's father blames Arthur for his daughter's death, as Arthur saw "that woman" at Eel Marsh.

At the house, Arthur uncovers correspondence between Alice and her sister Jennet Humfrye (Liz White). In her letters, Jennet denies Alice's verdict that she is "mentally unfit" to take care of her son, Nathaniel, and demands to see him, as the Drablows have formally adopted him, and barred her from contact. A death certificate reveals that Nathaniel drowned in a carriage accident on the marsh. The letter reveals that Jennet blames Alice for saving only herself and leaving Nathaniel's body in the marsh. The death certificates reveal that Jennet hanged herself from a beam in the nursery, vowing never to forgive Alice. That night, after the front door was tried for several minutes upsetting the dog that barks, Arthur goes outside in a thunderstorm and lightening and also sees visions of dead children in the marshes, Victoria among them.

Arthur finds the nursery no longer locked. Inside, he sees the Woman in Black hanging herself. In town, Jerome's house catches fire with his daughter still inside. When Arthur attempts to save her, he sees the Woman in Black goading the girl into immolating herself. The townspeople blame Arthur for this death as well.

At her son's grave, Elisabeth tells Arthur that the Woman in Black is Jennet, who claims the village children by having them take their lives in penance for her own son being taken. Arthur realizes that his son Joseph, who is coming to Crythin Gifford that night, is Jennet's next victim. In an effort to lift the curse, Arthur and Sam find Nathaniel's body in the marsh, and place it in his nursery, where Arthur lures Jennet to him. Arthur and Sam bury Nathaniel with Jennet, though her voice echoes through the house that she will never forgive the wrongs she suffered.

Assuming Jennet pacified, Arthur and his son Joseph meet at the railway station. While bidding farewell to Sam, Arthur sees the Woman in Black lure Joseph onto the tracks towards an oncoming train. Though he attempts to save him, both Arthur and Joseph are killed by the oncoming train while a horrified Sam sees the spirits of the village children, and the Woman in Black.

After the train passes, Joseph spots a woman in white on the tracks, and Arthur identifies her as his late wife Stella, the family now happily reunited, as the Woman in Black looks ominously on.

Emma Shorey ...
Fisher Girl