The Woman in Black (2012 film)

Plot[edit]

In the village of Crythin Gifford in 1889, three young girls playing in their nursery notice a presence in the room; hypnotised and entranced, they jump to their deaths from the window.


In 1906, in Edwardian London, lawyer Arthur Kipps's son Joseph is born, but his wife, Stella, dies after childbirth. Four years later, Arthur is instructed to visit Crythin Gifford to retrieve any documents left by Alice Drablow, the deceased owner of Eel Marsh House, an isolated and desolate marshland estate, before the sale of the house. Upon arrival, Arthur finds the villagers cold and local solicitor Jerome unwelcoming but he finds sympathy in wealthy landowner Samuel Daily.


At Eel Marsh House Arthur is distracted by odd noises, a bolted nursery, and a spectral entity in black funerary garb. He hears sounds on the marshes of a carriage and a screaming child but sees no one on the causeway. The village constable dismisses his concerns. Two children enter the station with their sister Victoria, who has ingested lye, but she dies in Arthur's arms. The townspeople blame Arthur.


That night Sam reveals that he and his wife, Elisabeth, lost their young son and his friends to drowning. Arthur later discovers Jerome’s young daughter barricaded in the basement for her safety. She too believes him to be responsible for Victoria’s death. Victoria's father later tearfully accuses him of seeing "that woman" at Eel Marsh.


Back at the house, Arthur uncovers correspondence between Alice and her sister Jennet Humfrye. In this, Jennet demands to see her son Nathaniel, whom the Drablows had formally adopted after having Jennet declared mentally unfit, to avoid the shame of Jennet being an unmarried mother. Nathaniel later drowned in a carriage accident on the marsh and Jennet blamed Alice for saving only herself and leaving the boy. Jennet hanged herself in the nursery, vowing never to forgive Alice. Arthur finds the nursery now unlocked. From the window, he watches in horror as a boy crawls out of the mud in the rain. Outside, he sees numerous dead children in the marshes, Victoria among them. Inside, he sees an apparition of a woman hanging herself.


In town the next day, Jerome's house catches fire. When Arthur attempts to save Jerome's daughter, he sees the Woman in Black goading the girl into burning herself. Elisabeth explains that the Woman in Black is Jennet, who claims the village children by having them take their own lives in penance for her own son being taken from her. Arthur realises that his son, who is coming to Crythin Gifford that night, is next.


In an attempt to lift the curse, Arthur and Sam find Nathaniel's body in the marsh and place it in his nursery, into which Arthur lures Jennet. They bury Nathaniel with Jennet, though her voice echoes that she will never forgive the wrongs she suffered. Assuming that she has been pacified, Arthur meets Joseph and his nanny at the station. He sees the Woman in Black lure Joseph onto the tracks. In the attempt to save him, both he and Joseph are killed by an oncoming train. A horrified Sam sees the ghosts of all the village children who were killed standing with the Woman in Black.


Arthur and Joseph, now in the afterlife, see Stella in a peaceful and bright railway station. The family is happily reunited.