Nice-looking parlor tricks are still just parlor tricks

Review

Do you have one of those friends who is a constant prankster, always looking to pull a cheap joke over on you?

They always get you the first few times when you're not expecting it, but after a while you start checking every drink they hand you or door you enter to make sure you're not on the losing end of a lame joke.

"The Woman in Black" is the cinematic version of that friend -- a horror movie with so little originality that all it has is cheap parlor tricks.

For the last hour, director James Watkins uses every inch of his frame to try to find some place to put something shocking, disturbing or surprising. Every 30 seconds there's something new jumping out of the frame somewhere or another; it's tiring, predictable and devoid of anything frightening.

This is exactly the kind of mistake that Daniel Radcliffe -- the one and only "Harry Potter" -- needed to avoid. I had hoped his first post-"Potter" role would be the kind of daring, interesting character that lets the world know you're not just Harry Potter.

But "The Woman in Black" does not offer that role. It offers almost no decent roles for anyone, to be honest. It's a boring, cliché-ridden horror film that doesn't have any scary ideas aside from catching viewers off-guard.

Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a widowed father sent to a go through the possessions of some recently deceased lady and finish her unfinished business. I think that's what he's doing, at least. He has to spend lots of time in this really creepy house going through papers, so it's no surprise he keeps hearing and seeing weird things.

I kept wondering why he didn't simply take the papers with him and get the hell out of the creepy house, but logic probably shouldn't be applied to movies this stupid.

Long story short, there was some crazy lady who lost her kid and now her ghost is haunting the locals. I think? It's mighty stupid and confusing, so you don't much care to figure it out.

The locals all get really angry when Kipps starts going to the house because bad things happen to their kids when people visit the house. There is, of course, a woman wearing black who they always see before awful things happen to children.

The entire town is terrified of Kipps going to the house, which begs the question: Why did none of you ever burn the house down? If that many kids died in a small town and all the deaths were linked to something supernatural, I don't really think local authorities would bother trying to solve the case and press arson charges. They'd probably just let it go.

There is one interesting character, a sidekick of sorts played by Ciarán Hinds. He's the smart local that doesn't believe the silly superstitions about the woman, choosing instead to follow logic. In any other movie he'd be the only sane character. He also has a few moments that are actually interesting, comical or human. Hinds deserves a better movie.

Anyone wanting to be scared, instead of simply jumping at things that pop out at them, also deserves a better movie. We all know that most horror movies aren't especially good, but this one is worse than others usually are.

"The Woman in Black" is rated PG-13 for thematic material and violence/ disturbing images. Had they taken stupidity into the equation I'm pretty sure it would have gotten the R.