Dark Water Year: 2005 Director: Walter Salles Written by: Rafael Yglesias Based on: 2002 film Honogurai mizu no soko kara Threat: Ghost Weapon of Choice: Water IMDb page:

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Rish's Reviews
Having seen Open Water just two days ago, you'd figure I would be confused between that and this film, Dark Water. But except for the titles, there's no comparison.
By the director of The Motorcycle Diaries, this film tells the tale of a newly-separated mother (Jennifer Connelly) and her young daughter who move into a spooky, crumbling apartment building only to find something supernatural going on in the apartment above theirs. Dirty and disgusting water has a lot to do with it.
This is a remake of a 2002 Japanese horror film (aren't they all?), and is it just me, or is this nearly the same as all the others, except for not at all scary? Once again, we've got a single mother protecting her child from a ghostly presence, who also happens to be a child. The film certainly paints New York in an unfavourable light, focusing on the squalor and packed-in aspects of it, which also reminded me of the film's Japanese city influence.
I had to admire the filmmakers for trying something different in having Connelly's character be unstable and semi-crazy from the beginning, so that it's a possibility that she's imagining things (or at least everyone she talks to can feel that way). Another refreshing aspect was that her ex-husband, played by Dougray Scott, turns out to be not a total bastard, no matter how much we expect him to be. In fact, in his introductory scene we just assume that he is a piece of crap because hey, he's the ex-husband.
One of the problems I had with the film was that the ghost, the daughter, and Connelly's character as a child all looked strikingly similar, and I found it difficult to tell them apart. If this had been the Japanese original, I guess I would come off as racist in saying that, but for the American version to do it must have been for a reason. Later I learned that the ghost and young Connelly were played by the same actress. Again, I can only guess that it was so we'd see that Connelly saw herself in the ghost. I'm not sure, though . . . tyranist is the brains behind this operation.
There will be some (mostly young folks raised on MTV and "Mighty Felching Power Rangers") who will find the film plodding, dull, and pointless. Others, however, will only find it well-crafted and boring. And hey, the filmmakers took great pains in making the film more atmospheric than scary. The ghost effects could've been horrible, they could have made me shriek and poop my pants, like so many other horror films have. But they didn't. I have to assume that was on purpose, because the filmmakers struck me as quite competent.
As I was watching this, I thought this would be one I would recommend to my mother. It just seems like the kind of horror film she would like.
But the kind of horror film she likes and the kind I like are not usually very similar. It wasn't that Dark Water was a bad film, in fact, it was quite well done, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I don't think I'll recommend it, especially since I like scares in my Horror, and this could almost be categorised as a Drama.
Posted: October 25, 2005

Total Skulls: 17

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?