Less is certainly more in The Woman In Black, a chilling film version of the celebrated novel by Susan Hill.

Working from a screenplay by Jane Goldman, director James Watkins delivers a cinematic ghost train that plunges into the eerie silence of a haunted house as our mutton-chopped hero nervously wanders corridors with a flickering lamp.

Expectations of unspeakable horrors around each darkened corner play havoc with frayed nerves.

Old-fashioned horror techniques render leading man Daniel Radcliffe mute for extended periods, in his first major role since hanging up his wand as Harry Potter.

London solicitor Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is haunted by the death of his wife Stella (Sophie Stuckey) during child birth, and he seeks refuge in his love for their three-year-old boy, Joseph (Misha Handley). His work suffers as a consequence and to prove himself, Arthur is despatched to the remote village of Crythin Gifford where he must attend to the papers of Alice Drablow, the recently deceased owner of Eel Marsh House.

The locals including innkeeper Fisher (Shaun Dooley) and his wife (Mary Stockley), try to ward him off but Arthur persists with the help of local landowner Mr Daily (Ciaran Hinds) and glimpses a mysterious woman (Liz White) dressed all in black, who is blamed for the deaths of children in the village.