The Woman In Black (2012) is a classic ghost story, and the titular villain feels like something straight out of old school horror. The woman manipulates children into killing themselves, and in the opening scene three little girls are having a nice tea party before calmly walking out the window to their death. Like in many of the best ghost movies, the Woman in Black herself has a pretty interesting backstory that's slowly revealed over the course of the film. She's the spirit of a woman named Janet, who was mentally ill and unable to care for her child. When her son drowned, she was so grief stricken that she hung herself. Now she kills children because of what happened to her own son, kind of like a spirit version of Pamela Voorhees in the first Friday the 13th. The Woman in Black is constantly appearing all throughout the house and just standing here, which can sometimes be even more terrifying than actually doing anything. As a result, when she breaks from that and makes a sudden movement, it's totally disorienting and scary as hell. In one sequence, she appears far down the hallway and then suddenly races forward while emitting a high pitched screech. That's exactly what nightmares are made of.
