"The Woman in Black" (2012) is one of those sort-of-horror movies that I find more suspenseful and creepy than scary, with a few chills thrown in here and there. I watched this the other night--by myself, even though the tagline says "don't watch it alone"--and I did enjoy it, although it definitely was not that scary to me.
   The story revolved around an old house, Eel Marsh, in a remote village in England that is basically being haunted. Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a young, widowed lawyer with a young son. Kipps is sent to this house by his law firm to settle the estate of its last occupant, and of course, runs right into the whole haunted mess. He realizes that there is a secret in the village, no one wants to speak of it, and that there is someone in the house searching for something, but what? Who is it and what are they after?
   The movie has a fine Gothic atmosphere, great spooky sets, very evocative of old time horror movies, but the scares were very few, mostly involving loud noises. Once Arthur realizes something is wrong here and becomes involved in discovering the truth, it really does become more a suspense/thriller type of story with the audience wondering when he will finally piece things together and what the truth will turn out to be when it's revealed. Yes, there are deaths of children, lots of screams and wails and other noises, strange movements and shadows, scenes in graveyards, a local woman who has bizarre medium-like fits, a barking dog, and so forth, all of which add to the atmosphere of general unsettling creepiness and are in some cases disturbing, but not genuinely scary.
   The flick moved along at a decent pace, and I was interested in finding out the real story, but I did at times get impatient with Arthur at not being quite bright enough to figure things out quickly enough. With help from a local man who had lost his own son once to the woman in black, Arthur finally makes connections, discovers the truth, and tries to rectify the situation. Alas, even though he valiantly attempts to make things right, the end result has disastrous consequences. It was interesting to see Daniel Radcliffe in more of an adult role after all his success with the "Harry Potter" movies, and he does a commendable job with his part.
   This film reminded me of movies like the 1963 version of "The Haunting,""The Innocents," and "The Others."
  

LIONHEART by Sharon Kay Penman, 2011.
Sweeping chronicle of Richard the Lionheart's crusade to re-capture Jerusalem from the Infidel in 1190-1192, better known to history as the Third Crusade or the Kings' Crusade. Although Penman's novel is a dense, sprawling saga with an enormous cast of characters that could be very daunting to many, the author, using her impeccable research and flair for realistic dialogue and creating memorable characters, pulls it all together with her usual distinctive style and storytelling skills and provides the reader with a vivid and fascinating depiction of the era and those who lived it.
   Having read the author's previous novels on the Plantagenets, I was fully prepared for reading this one and anxious to see how she dealt with Richard I and his experiences in the Holy Land. Penman's narrative deftly moves from drafty castles in France to exotic palaces in Sicily to the hot plains of Outremer, giving the reader a wonderful sense of time and place. Her descriptions are lush and vibrant (you can hear the marketplace sounds, smell and taste the foods served at the banquets), she creates memorable scenes (the capture of Cyprus and the siege of Acre stand out), she makes each character an individual (although with such an amazing amount of names, I admit I did have to keep checking her cast list), and she quite remarkably manages to weave together her various plotlines into a whole tapestry. Not being a huge military history buff, I felt that she also kept a good balance between battle scenes and non-military manipulations and maneuvers.
   Penman knows her characters: she gives them foibles and flaws and human attributes, creating real flesh and blood people for the reader to care about. I enjoyed her portrayal of Richard--he strides magnificently through the story as a fascinating and truly multifaceted individual--a combination of courageous military man, caring husband, loyal son and brother, and strong leader who genuinely felt compassion for his soldiers, who led by example, and who believed that they were on God's mission to wrest the Holy Land back for the Christians. She shows him with a great sense of humor and playfulness, and I thought her depiction of his marriage to Berengaria of Navarre was handled very well. The lesser known character of Joanna of Sicily was interesting to me, as well as Henri of Champagne; Eleanor of Aquitaine's appearance was much too brief; Philippe of France does not come off very well, nor do any of the de Lusignans, but none of them are one note characters, she gives them depth and reasons for their actions.
   I learned quite a bit about the conflict in Outremer: between the Turks and the Europeans, the French and the English, the English and the Cypriots, etc. Quite a lot of information, but Penman informs the reader in a nice flowing narrative with a decent pace; I never felt overwhelmed by the amount of detail. Perhaps my only criticism would be that while the Infidel leader Saladin seemed ever-present, he never really came to life for me as a character, possibly because Penman kept him sort of off-stage. But this is a minor quibble. Overall, this was a vastly entertaining novel for me, and I'm looking forward to the author's next installment.