Earlier this year, The Woman in Black offered the kind of old school spooky thrills that we don't see often enough amidst found-footage hysteria-fests and prolonged massacres.  The film, based on the popular1983 novel by Susan Hill, marked the resurrection of legendary horror imprint Hammer, and now that the the modestly-budgeted thriller has performed robustly all around the world, Hammer is continuing it as a series.

It's Presidents' Day weekend, folks and in anticipation of the day commemorating revolutionary ass-kicker his Excellency George Washington, the American moviegoer showed some love to another cool, though historically less significant Washington.  The actioner Safe House starring Denzel Washington is squeaking out a victory in its second weekend of release, as current estimates have it making just a bit more than fellow holdover The Vow.  Both films managed to best three new releases, though.

As the nation recovered from last weekend's Super Bowl festivities, it sought entertainment through the movies, resulting in a very busy weekend, resulting in a few minor records being broken.  So far in this young year, the box office has been surprisingly robust, particularly considering the often feeble showings throughout 2011.  This particular weekend, no less than four major movies opened to well over $20 million, quite an accomplishment on a seemingly unremarkable February frame.  Strong showings all around meant that, overall, there was a 30% increase from the comparable weekend last year.

The weekend of the Super Bowl is generally a pretty quiet one at multiplexes across this great and strange nation of ours, as the annual NFL championship game completely hijacks national attention.  Nobody's really thinking about movies, since there's too much anticipation for commercials interrupted by spurts of football.  Accordingly, with the New England Patriots and the New York Giants squaring off in Indianapolis, nobody expected much from this weekend's new releases, but lo and behold, two of the three newbies surprised.  Both Chronicle and The Woman in Black debuted to over $20 million, with the former edging out the latter for first place.

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Synopsis: A young lawyer (Radcliffe) travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.

Without exception, every trailer that we've seen promoting The Woman in Black suggests that the film could be an exceedingly well-made little horror story, one that eschews high body counts and ineffectual jump-scares in favor of actually, you know, building tension and atmosphere.  That said, the bulk of attention that movie receives leading up to its release will be based on the fact that it stars Daniel Radcliffe in his first non-wizarding role since the biggest franchise of all-time concluded with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.  While it would be easy to put Radcliffe's recognizable mug on every available surface in order to sell The Woman in Black, the latest poster goes instead for a spooky image that includes zero percent Radcliffe.  His name is there, of course, but still.

Contemporary horror tends, more often than not, to be based around garish brutality and jolting jump scares with cranked-up sound, as evidenced by any number of interchangeable films in which nubile young folks get naked just in time to meet their ridiculously elaborate demises.  A new trailer for The Woman in Black, however, promises that the movie will be a an old-fashioned and very effective scare-delivery vessel by relying on tried and true methods of inducing dread.  The trailer slowly builds an ominous sense of foreboding, using sound and visuals to convey that something horrible is on the way in this story of Arthur Kipps, a young clerk who travels to English countryside to sort out the affairs of a woman who recently met her end.  Daniel Radcliffe, in his first post-Harry Potter role, plays the protagonist, and it looks like Mr. Kipps will be getting up to his chin in scary shenanigans.

For his first starring role since the end of a certain franchise involving wizardry and a lightning bolt scar, globally recognizable and widely loved actor Daniel Radcliffe chose another novel adaptation, the upcoming The Woman in Black.  The novel by Susan Hill follows Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer who travels to a remote village on Britain's east coast in order to organize a recently deceased woman's legal affairs.  At the Eel Marsh House, however, he's menaced by the titular spectre.  Hill's novel is held in extremely high regard, and a new UK trailer gives a good idea why, as it's chock full of classic spooky moments.  Like the last trailer, issued in August, this one is full of very effective and dread-inducing atmosphere, but it also features a surprising number of more visceral jolts.  What's more, it also imparts more than previous trailers about Kipps himself.  And hey, it's got Ciaran Hinds, one of my favorite underapreciated British actors.  All in all, a damn fine trailer.

Way back in April, the first teaser trailer for the British ghost story The Woman in Black certainly got the job done, but was very much a teaser, and seemed more interested in informing the world that the film contains erstwhile Harry Potter himself Daniel Radcliffe's first post-Potter starring role.  That makes sense, given that Radcliffe spent a decade playing a globally-beloved literary figure in what is officially the biggest movie franchise ever.  A new trailer for The Woman in Black, however, gets that point across while also being terrifically atmospheric and scary, promising a properly creepy adaptation of the novel by Susan Hill.  There's plenty of mist, disconcerting toys, cobweb-infested environs, and even some always-reliable emotionless little girls that recall The Shining.