Dreary London streets. Creepy old buildings. Evil spirits and... Daniel Radcliffe. Are you thinking of Harry Potter?

I would be too. However, I’m talking about James Watkins’ “The Woman in Black”, which opened nationwide Friday. The movie stars—you guessed it—Daniel Radcliffe.

The hype for the movie created by Radcliffe’s mere involvement admittedly had me scrambling to change the channel whenever I was watching TV alone, so I settled into my seat at Hollywood Theaters in Norman with the Friday night groups of high school kids and a considerable amount of excitement about what this film might deliver.

“The Woman in Black” is based on the novel by Susan Hill and is directed by James Watkins (writer/director “Eden Lake”) and written by Jane Goldman (“X-Men: First Class”, “The Debt”). It most notably stars Daniel Radcliffe (the “Harry Potter” series), Janet McTeer (“Albert Nobbs”) and Ciarán Hinds (“The Debt”, “There Will Be Blood”).

Set in turn-of-the-century England, “The Woman in Black” follows Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), a young lawyer and recently widowed father, as he travels to a small village from London to settle the estate of a recently deceased woman.

He discovers a spirit seeking revenge for the accidental death of her son and terrorizing the villagers by murdering their children.

The movie is pretty good. Radcliffe’s performance is relatively convincing as our hero. Maybe it’s the facial hair or Watkins’ clever cover-up of his comically short stature — Radcliffe measures in at only about 5’6”— even though he still looks and sounds like our beloved Hogwarts hero, he fights hard to break out of that mold, and for the most part, he does. Radcliffe’s character spends a good portion of his time lamenting over the death of his wife and being ostracized by the locals, even though he’s only trying to help them.

Replace his wife with parents and the “locals” with the wizarding world, and these are motives we’ve been seeing him play with a scar on his forehead since 2001.

Otherwise, he spends the rest of his screen time creeping slowly around the woman in black’s decrepit house, peeking around walls and causing us to want to shout at him, “don’t go in there!” Radcliffe does an admirable job nonetheless, and in my opinion is well on his way to no longer being known exclusively as ‘The Boy Who Lived.’

Plot-wise, “Woman” is nothing particularly special. The story — outsider stays in a creepy old house despite being warned by locals that it’s haunted — has been done about a thousand times before, both successfully and unsuccessfully. What struck me as I was watching this movie, and now again as I look over my near-illegible notes that I took in the dark, was a sense of nostalgia.

I was reminded of a tour of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, with cobwebs, paintings whose occupants’ eyes follow you as you walk past and doors that slam shut with no apparent touch.

“Woman”, while lacking somewhat at a well-paced and interesting story, feels much like a walk through a very convincing and terrifying haunted house, with Radcliffe’s character Arthur Kipps serving as a guide.

The story moves a bit slowly in the beginning as Mr.. Kipps hears of the woman in black’s legend in painstakingly small bits by various locals and is warned again and again to leave the old house alone.

We get a few jumps here and there with the woman appearing in shadow just behind Arthur’s shoulders and plenty of pale, blank-faced children staring ominously out of windows, but it isn’t until about 45 minutes in that Arthur decides to stay in the house overnight, which is when things really get going.

From that point on, I watched through my fingers as the hero explores the old house and its excessive collection of creepy old children’s toys that tinkle out spine-chilling music box melodies armed with an axe and a flickering candle as a rainstorm rages outside.

While the jump-moment count is high, it never seems to be overdone, and they really did get me every time, even prompting me to scream aloud at one point. And it didn’t seem to be just me, an admittedly jumpy person. I counted about ten walk-outs ­— a sure sign of a truly creepy horror flick.

The movie’s ending pretty well reflects the overall feeling; it’s a little weak thematically but will make you check the backseat of your car before you drive home.

Essentially, “The Woman in Black,” looks back to what has worked in past horror movies — old mansions, ominous shadowy figures, haunted children, a string-heavy soundtrack to build suspense, the supernatural — and capitalizes on it, reminding us of why we’re afraid of the dark and why that porcelain doll on our dresser makes us a little nervous at bedtime.

This movie hinges on its ability to quicken your pulse and make you scream rather than deliver a mind-boggling mystery or make you contemplate life; and once it gets going, it certainly accomplishes its goal.

Overall, I’d recommend this movie, especially if you’re a fan of haunted houses and jumping out of your skin. While it won’t give you an Oscar-worthy life lesson or show you a completely different set of Daniel Radcliffe’s acting skills, you will get an entertaining little night of cinema and the opportunity to startle your friends more easily for the rest of the evening.

You might want to invest in a night-light, though.

Erin Roberts is a University College freshman