By Daryl Bär

Hammer’s history of Horror cinema is littered with sequels so it was no great surprise when a follow up was announced to the studio’s biggest hit to date. Set several decades after The Woman in Black (2012) the plot follows a group of evacuees escaping Blitz-battered London seeking refuge in a rather dilapidated Eel Marsh House and awakening the curse within.

It is such a shame that after an impressive start to proceedings the filmmakers rely heavily on the use of “sucker-punch jumps”. These shock tactics are symptomatic of modern Horror movies and do little more than startle briefly, never allowing the movie to get under your skin with a creeping dread. Earlier this year Hammer’s own The Quiet Ones suffered a similar flaw and while AoD is a considerably better picture It seems this is all we are to expect from supernatural Horror for a good while to come.

But it’s not all doom and gloom though. There are plenty of chilling moments as the titular antagonist has more screen time (read; “scare time”). In fact this is almost at the detriment of Phoebe Fox’s performance as you spend a great deal of time looking over her shoulder instead of watching her. Although, those moments when the tension builds, where we’ve had close-ups of cracked porcelain dolls and maraca wielding monkeys, these are the scenes where AoD manages to replicate the creepy atmosphere one associates with The Woman in Black.

Comparisons between the two movies are unavoidable and while the similarities are why the majority of people will be paying their admission fee, this definitely isn’t at the Die Hard 2 level of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”!

Although not an entirely necessary jaunt back to Eel Marsh House, The Woman in Black: Angel of Death provides enough scares on its own terms to keep you frightened in the dark.

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