War and adversity can unveil the best facets of human nature, what we are truly capable of accomplishing, aspects that define us, particularly when we find ourselves in turbulent times. War for example; war is the essence of all negative emotions in a human being, mapped out on a global scale. So how do you cope when you find yourself, in the midst of some of the most harrowing times Europe has ever been exposed to, presented with an unexplainable evil?

Fleeing London from the Blitz of World War Two, a group of children and their schoolteacher Eve, are evacuated to the idylls of the East coast of England. Taken to the dilapidated Eel Marsh Estate, cut off each day by high tide from the mainland, they are left to their own devices, each of them fleeing from the horror of wartime London. Slowly, but surely the children in Eve’s care change, act stranger; she soon discovers, with the help of local military commander Harry, that they have indeed awoken a dark and malevolent force.

So we find the premise for a brand new novel by Martyn Waites. The Woman in Black will once again be set loose upon the Eel Marsh Estate, forty years after Arthur Kipps last visited Cryphin Gifford, and it promises to be even more terrifying than the original 1983 novel by Susan Hill. The Woman in Black: Angel of Darkness is based on an original idea of Hills, but Hammer Books enlisted Martyn Waites to write the novel; it is also being developed by screenwriter Jon Croker and director Tom Harper.

The Woman in Black, is an exemplary example of British horror and the highest grossing in the last two decades, taking over $120 million worldwide, and it came as no surprise to see that a sequel is now very much in the works. Sequel is normally a little bit of a dirty word when it comes to film, however given the success of both Waites and Hill, who will be replacing Jane Goldman as screenwriter, and Tom Harper as director who’s previously worked on Demons, This is England 86′ and Misfits, The Angel of Death is sure to have the atmospherics and plot just right. Either way, it will be refreshing to see a horror sequel that isn’t relying merely on the amount of gore it can squeeze in to sell tickets, but the merit of its story instead.

We can expect to see The Woman in Black: Angel of Death on screen in 2014.