Running at 98 minutes, Director Tom Harper takes off along with writer Susan Hill in Angel of Death, from the 2012 prequel starring Daniel Radcliffe, Woman In Black (part one).
Located at the Eel Marsh House, forty years have passed and WW II brings forth the haunting woman once again, this time the catalyst being little children who move into this countryside under the guardianship of two school teachers.
Moving away into ‘safety’ from a London being bombarded, Eve Parkins (Phoebe Fox) and Jean Hogg (Helen McCrorary) are entrusted with a group of school going children along with the unnaturally quiet Edward (Oaklee Pendergast) who has just become an orphan. Helen’s husband is a brigadier in the British army and arranges the stay in this Edwardian English village as their safety-abode till things quieten down in London.
Yet there are some pasts which one cannot live with, especially that of Eve’s- the first night she has a nightmare of her abandoned baby with the words ‘you gave him up’ echoing through her mind and later which she finds etched on the brick wall of an abandoned attic-like room. Edward, who never speaks, just writes and tells her ‘the woman’ told him ‘not to tell’ and also gave him a message for Eve- ‘you gave him up’.
Eve is somewhat convinced that there is something in the house, whilst Jean is not and not long before two children are found dead under mysterious circumstances.
Harry, a pilot who takes a fancy to Eve, whilst on the train, comes to look them up and wants to help, but will the woman in black let them escape? The mud island is inaccessible once the tides come in and it’s as good as living in the land of the dead. Will they make it to the land of the living?
Eve will not allow Edward to become the sacrificial lamb and screams out, ‘you will not take him; you cannot have him’. Does she see in Edward her own abandoned son or the lost chance of a life bygone?
In any case Angel of Death lacks the thrill of the first part and has nothing new, by way of a horror story to tell us- which horror flick has otherwise? There are moments of jumps, shakes, shivers and starts- but that’s about all to it.
Honestly, the horror genre has outlived it utility and is dying a slow and painful death- watch the Angel of Death and you will be reassured of this- horror films in a few years from now will certainly not be resurrecting, unless someone comes up with a real bang!
Rating: 2.5/5