The Woman in Black

A young London lawyer, Arthur Kidd, is sent to a coastal town in the west of England to handle the affairs of a recently deceased widow, Ellis Drablow. At her funeral he notices a woman dressed in black, and the townspeople prove unwilling to discuss her or the house the dead woman left behind. Curious and increasingly uneasy, Kidd keeps seeking her out while he works through the estate, which holds secrets the locals prefer to avoid.

The Woman in Black is a British television adaptation of Susan Hill's novel, directed by Herbert Wise from a screenplay by Nigel Kneale. Adrian Rawlins plays Kidd, with Bernard Hepton, David Daker, Pauline Moran, David Ryall and Clare Holman among the credited cast of twenty-four. Wise had an extensive career in British television drama, and this production sits late in that run of work. It was first broadcast in December 1989 and runs 100 minutes, blending horror and mystery within a period setting.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7 out of 10 from roughly 6,900 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.9 out of 10 from about 147 votes. A small pool of five critics' reviews gives an average of 8.3 out of 10. The wide gap in vote numbers between the two audience sources reflects how much more heavily the title is tracked on IMDb, while the critical figure comes from a very small sample.