A mother and her young daughter move in to an apartment that seemingly has a terrible water problem. Ghostly appirations and tear jerking suspence lead to a chilling climax.
When i first saw Hideo Nakata's "Ringu" i was utterly stunned. I had never seen anything like it I was amazed by its eery and demented images thaqt flashed on the screen in an unnerving and yet such a suttle way. I immediatly crowned ita favorite in the never ending library of horror movies inside my head. Then a tragedy beheald me, The Ring was to be remade by an american director. I couldnt believe it, why? i asked myself but i could never ponder a sufficient answer. the remake turned out to be mildly entertaining and sometimes even capture the gothic atmosphere of the first. An exceptional remake though strongly inferior to its original.
On my recent trip to the video store I partaked in a little known film called "Dark water" by the same Hideo Nakata that did my beloved "ringu", having thoroughly enjoyed the directors last installment i decided it might be a good scare. So i cashed in and brought it home to enjoy.
The first thing i noticed in Dark Water was a similiar eery, gothic and unnerving atmosphere that i had witnessed in Ringu. The same kind of depressing mood that can only be described as "ghostly", deathly feeling. This sucked me in and played a key role in my enjoyment of the film. Moving on to the actors, Character developement and understanding were both exxelent, i felt for both of the main characters, that being a little girl and her mom. When i watch a film in subtitles it is usually very hard for me to tell the quality of the acting. Yet in this film it was obvious that the mother played her part extremely welll and it helped me to develope compassion for the characters.
Another plus was the myriad of spooky appirations and eerie scenes that played all throughout the movie, it was by no means boring, even the developement of characters played a vital role and never failed to entertain me. these japanese ghost stories never fail to give me goosebumps.
In the end "dark water" was a slightly above average ghost story with great character and an extremely eerie atmosphere. I would suggest a rent before a buy but that is only because these films are of an aquired taste, a taste i might add which i enjoy very much.