DVD reviews: Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance | Woman in Black

By Alistair Harkness
Published on 02/07/2012 00:00

THE world wasn’t really crying out for a sequel to Ghost Rider, the Nicholas Cage-starring 2007 comic book movie flop about a vigilante stunt rider who has sold his soul to the devil.

Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance

E1, £19.99

Woman in Black

Momentum, £19.99

It certainly wasn’t crying out for one as rubbish looking and boringly incoherent as Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. With a worse-than-usual hairpiece and his crazy-o-meter dialled up to 11, Cage returns once again to play Johnny Blaze, who, as the film opens, is in self-imposed exile in Eastern Europe, which is basically code for: this movie has been made on the cheap. Teaming up with a priest (played by Idris Elba) to rescue a young boy from the devil (Ciarán Hinds), Cage’s antihero is subjected to lots of rubbish action and terrible fire effects that makes his supposedly bad-ass character just look bad. New directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor fail to harness the giddy delirium of their Jason Statham-starring Crank movies; instead of outrageous set-pieces, the most the 12A certificate allows them to attempt is a scene featuring Cage pissing fire. And that’s in the trailer, so there’s really no need to sit through the whole thing.

THE 12A-rated Woman in Black on the other hand provides a neat introduction to horror for Harry Potter fans. Adapted from Susan Hill’s already much adapted 1983 novel, the 1904-set film casts Daniel Radcliffe as a grieving husband and young father sent from London to Yorkshire to attend to he sale of a country estate that the locals are convinced is haunted. Treated with inexplicable hostility upon arrival, he perseveres with the job he’s been sent to do – even as he begins seeing the titular spirit and local children start dropping like flies around him. Radcliffe gives a very earnest and engaging performance here, though even allowing for the period setting, he lacks the years and the gravitas to really convince as a husband and father. Nevertheless, while the film is essentially another vengeful ghost movie in the mould of The Orphanage, it’s big on atmosphere and a few scenes are properly unnerving. Seasoned horror fans might not be so taken in with its various twists and revelations, but it is the sort of thing that will likely give Radcliffe’s young, devoted fanbase some good old-fashioned scares.

• To order these DVDs, call The Scotsman on 01634 832789