Hideo Nakata's DARK WATER (director of RINGU)

[Deckard]

Hey aussie film fans with cable connection. A heads up to tell you that on Sunday August 17th"World Movies" is playing DARK WATER the latest film from Hideo Nakata Director of RINGU. Its a Japanese Horror about a puddle of Dark Water. Reviews have been positive and I am definetly going to check it out.

Also on Wednesday 27th of August they are screening the spanish chiller FAUST 5.0 that I really enjoyed. Its a very visual experience with great cinematography and eerie atmosphere, based on the "Goyer" classic this is one engrossing yarn.


For those who have seen DARK WATER please feel free to rate the film and wet my appetite even more. If youve seen FAUST 5.0 I would love to here everyones opinion.

For the rest CHECK EM OUT.........

[Fisting Ackbar]

Originally posted by Deckard
For those who have seen DARK WATER please feel free to rate the film and wet my appetite even more.

It's very similar to RINGU in terms of the style and the atmosphere...this can be a bad thing since you might think that there's no real difference and that there's no improvement from Nakata, but it is chilling in certain scenes and is one of the best recent horrorfilms out there. I'd rate it an 8/10

[JCPhoenix]

An interesting film, I just watched it last night (by a copy of the dvd I was able to obtain in Toronto)

I haven't seen RINGU, so my comparison is mainly with the English remake of it. If you're looking for a movie that has big neat twists like The Ring, Dark Water sort of fails. Within the first 20-30 minutes of the film, most of the backstory should be evident, and the main reasons for certain characters to certain things, etc should be pretty clear (though to be fair the finale is well done and one little part of it in particular was a neat twist that was set up in all of about 3 minutes and then executed extremely well).

As a whole, Dark Water freaked the hell outta me for the entire movie though. It's astonishing, because we almost never see any violence, gore, or anything like that. Almost every single one of the scares was the ones where you catch something out of the corner of your eye (something the movie THE EYE did quite well...watching that movie a second time around can be quite freaky...they've hidden some ghostly faces all over the film...look especially in the scene where she's on the subway thing), or something appears where you didn't expect it.

The film never makes you jump out of your seat screaming, but in many ways, it's much scarier. Films with big jumps tend to have the big jump, then some relief, then another big jump etc...Dark Water doesn't have very many of those but instead it keeps a sense of fear and dread running throughout the ENTIRE movie. I have to admit, I was so freaked out, I paused the film at one point and flipped through some channels to get my mind clear, then went back to teh film. It does this through things like the red bag, the creepy music, the SILENCE (man, this movie features one of the most effective uses of silence ever...there are some scenes where it's pure silence for a couple minutes and it's sooo eerie), and oh god that damn growing water stain which every minute I saw it I expected it to burst open and have some freaky creature come out.

The problem, some may find with the film, is that the finale feels a bit anticlimactic. To be fair, it features some stunningly original scenes (though the film as a whole is extremely similar to The Ring in theme, having the little ghost girl, theme of water, etc) like my favorite scene in the film, one in which Ikuko (the 6 year old daughter of the main character) turns on the tap and it starts...sputtering (as well as the overflowing bathtub). You'll know it when you get to it, it's downright creepy and totally original. But besides the finale, the epilogue some may find pointless. I found it had its merits, but it really didn't need to be anywhere near that long as it didn't really have that much to say. However, I would have preferred the film without the epilogue as it leaves things a bit more ambiguous.

The other problem people may find with the film is that it's not really about much. The premise of the film says it all: A mother fighting a vicious custody battle and her six year old daughter move into an apartment where a water stain starts to appear on the ceiling and a little red bag keeps reappearing...

besides this, there really isn't much more storywise.

But the fact is that the film was much more dramatic then I expected. themes run all throughout this film, especially about the mother-daughter relationship, which is why the custody battle is such a fitting and natural part of the film.

One last note: when i finished this film, I thought that the ending was fairly clear. However, as I read more and more theories online, it became apparent that the ending can be seen in several ways, not just one definite interpretation. There are some genuine scenes that seem to have been put into the film at random, but when using certain theories, these scenes in the film make more sense while others make less sense. Whatever the case, it seems the ending isn't quite as clearcut as it seemed to be.

I'm anxious to see the English remake. This is an interesting horror film that is an even better drama. Parts of it could improve, which is why a remake is ideal - it means another chance to nail this story down perfectly.

i gave it a 7/10 last night but in retrospect, after all is said and done, an 8/10 seems more in order.