The Woman In Black 2: Angel of Death film review: Woman with a busload of children in her care

They board an antique train from an antique station, and ride a rickety old bus to the island, across marshes and mist on a narrow winding road. It’s a beautiful scene laden with foreboding. It’s a strange place to be sending children for safekeeping, but as the official of the Education Board explains, they have few options.

Things start happening almost as soon as the children reach the house, and particularly vulnerable is Edward (Pendergast), who has just lost his parents in the war.

However, again Harper makes an effort to give the house the semblance of a school, with Fox doing a credible job as the compassionate teacher who senses something wrong. The only one who lends her fears a sympathetic ear is Harry (Irvine), a dashing pilot stationed off the island in the village.

The Woman in Black 2 isn’t as scary as its prequel, assumes most of us have watched the first film, and sees a surpring number of deaths. You also wish some of the story was about the children separated from parents put through horrors. However, the focus almost entirely is on Fox.

Still the care with which Harper frames this story, which can hardly vary very much from the first, makes the effort worthwhile.