Old-fashioned, well-made, and a bit of a bore. Daniel Radcliffe
(deadly serious) looks just right as a Cratchit-like legal drone sent
to a godforsaken corner of England to settle a dead woman's estate.
Upon arriving he confronts hostile, frightened townspeople who want
him gone even before he visits the distant, isolated mansion where we
can see even before he walks inside that something terrible took
place. Whoever did the casting found some remarkable faces to dress up
the story, from Radcliffe's beyond-adorable little boy to the pale
punims of the suicidal village children, serially harming themselves
while under the spell that is the picture's central mystery. The movie
is slow, fussy, and not a bit scary — with a finale that you can
probably write in your head as it limps to a close. Solid support from
Ciaran Hinds and Janet McTeer as a bereaved husband and wife. But one
of the movie's ad lines (“Don't See It Alone!”) is good advice only
because if you do, there'll be no one to turn to and roll your eyes.
— Jeff Schultz