FAQ

The film is most likely in the Edwardian era, as evidenced by a newspaper article advertisement talking about a Arthur Conan Doyle-hosted séance (middle-to-late 1910s). The same conclusion can be made by considering the car appearing in the movie. If we consider the deleted scene that appears in the screenplay for the movie, Keckwick tells Arthur the accident in the marshes he heard (where Nathaniel died) happened "No, not thirty minutes ago, Mr Kipps. Thirty years ago. [...] Twenty seven. To be precise." Then since the grave of Nathaniel Drablow states that he died in 1889, we can say the movie is set in 1916 or '17, if Keckwick has calculated correctly, and depending on the months.

No, this film is based (loosely) on the 1983 Gothic horror novel of the same name by Susan Hill, which the 1989 television film starring Adrian Rawlins was also based on.

The people in the village believed that if any one saw the WIB anywhere, one of the villager's children would commit suicide in a horrific manner. Arthur, who had come specially to the WIB's house, would probably have a lot of chances to see the WIB and so they feared that one of their children would die.

In the introduction scene of Elizabeth (Mrs. Daily, the wife of Samuel Daily) with Arthur, they converse normally for some time but while speaking about her and her son's interest in painting, Elizabeth starts behaving strangely, stating it's her son Nicholas, who is talking through her. Samuel rejects that thought, saying it's a mental disorder brought on by grief over the death of their beloved child. Arthur watches her drawing on the dinner table with a knife. The result is a picture showing a human hanging (assuming it's the WIB). In another scene at Nicholas' grave, Elizabeth again behaves strangely while conversing with Arthur and starts speaking like her child. The child through her says that the WIB makes them (the children) commit suicide because her (WIB's) child was taken from her. She also warns Arthur that WIB has seen Arthur and so she (WIB) is coming. Elizabeth also makes an engraving which looks like the drawing of Arthur's son, Joseph warning Arthur of the impending danger.

When Arthur realises that the WIB's appearance is the reason for the children in the village dying, he rushes to the village's post office to send a telegram to his son's nanny, cancelling their visit to the village. However the post office is burnt (as a result of it's being near the Jerome house where the daughter earlier set fire to herself) and the nearest post office is a one hour car journey away, as stated by Sam. To protect his son, and to end the WIB's vengeance, Arthur attempt's a permanent solution by re-uniting the body of the dead boy with his mother. This means that he has to recover the body from the marsh where it has lain ever since the accident.

Arthur comes to the conclusion that reuniting mother and son in death will somehow break the curse, and assumes that all Jennet (The Woman in Black) really wants is to be with her lost son and that the only way to do that should be burying them together. There are several reasons why Jennet did not find peace after being buried with Nathaniel. The first reason is that the reunion had an unsuccessful outcome; Nathaniel does not recognise Jennet as his mother (and even yells at her "you're not my mother!"). Being rejected by the child she'd been yearning to be with only spurns her on more, to the point that her revenge turned towards Joseph Kipps. Another reason that the WIB was not at peace following the reunion is that in life her mental condition was already in extremely questionable unbalance (as evidenced by her frantic scrawling in letters to her sister which are full of hate and claims that she can never forgive). In death, Jennet becomes a twisted dark and vengeful spirit who wants to make everyone suffer as she has suffered.

In the final scene at the railway station, Joseph has been mesmerized/hypnotized to leave his Dad's hand while Arthur was with Sam. There is only background sound and no dialogue is heard. When Nanny notices the boy walking on the track towards a train coming in the opposite direction, she shouts (with no audio heard) and Arthur rushes to save his son. He jumps on the tracks and holds his son. While Sam watches, the train runs over them. When train has passed, Sam notices all the dead children standing on the other side and the WIB (Woman in Black) in the next scene. Arthur notices that there is no one around including Sam, Nanny; Ticket staff; etc. The boy points to a woman and asks Arthur who it is. Arthur looks at her and says that it's the boy's mother. Arthur and his wife look at each other with love in their eyes, then Arthur looks at the boy and smiles, realizing that all the three have re-united as souls after death. They walk together on the track towards the dark side while their image of the WIB is shown by the camera.

Due to the more profitable rating, the movie was slightly shortened in the UK to get the 12A rating. Three scenes have been trimmed and in total approx. 15 seconds are missing in the UK version. The censored version was also used for the home video releases.