“THE WOMAN IN BLACK”

★★★ 1/2 (out of four)

For “The Woman in Black,” based on Black’s old-school gothic ghost story published in 1983, is not merely a moderately interesting genre diversion, as I had assumed. It’s a fully formed, carefully crafted horror movie in the classical Hammer Films sense, bursting with style and atmosphere and an unrelenting sense of dread. I’m left to wonder if there has been a more entertaining or frightening ghost story released in the past decade, but for now I’m coming up blank.

“SAFE HOUSE”

★ 1/2 (out of four)

As directed by Daniel Espinosa, marking his U.S. debut, “Safe House” is yet another in a long line of generic action pictures assembled from the Tony Scott model, defined by dark, grainy photography, excessively rapid editing techniques that render action sequences incoherent, and a reliance on useless narrative padding that turns what should have been an 80-minute diversion into a two-hour torture session. I guess there’s not much to say about this approach aside from observing once again that it is terrible and stupid and should be stopped by any means necessary, but it also begs the question: Why? It’s not like Tony Scott movies clean up at the box office, and in fact the countless clones typically do even worse business. So why has this mode of filmmaking, which is constantly lampooned by the public and critics alike and doesn’t even earn its keep by producing reasonable box office results, become so incredibly popular in contemporary Hollywood? This is not rhetorical; I’m actually asking, and hope that someone can shed some light on this. Because I’m stumped.