Hideo Nakata's DARK WATER shares many parallels with his 1998 masterpiece RINGU - not least in the storyline. A single mother, battling for custody of her six year old daughter but losing the fight as a result of previous psychiatic treatment, moves into a dilapidated apartment complex and is soon plagued by a constant dripping of murky water from her kitchen ceiling. She also starts seeing a girl around the building - one who closely resembles a long-missing schoolgirl - but is what she's seeing real or is it all a delusional nightmare?
I personally don't think Nakata - or anyone else for that matter - will ever match the sheer intensity, suspense and ingenuity of RINGU (certainly not for a while, anyway) and it's unfortunate that his latest effort - also based on a Koji Suzuki novel - has to be compared to that. It's impossible not to, however, and while DARK WATER has a few chilling moments, it suffers from a woeful lack of pace and a rather incomprehensible plot which ultimately result in a disappointing feature.
Acting is magnificent, with Hitomi Kuroki giving a performance to rival anything I've seen in Asian cinema as the distraught mother whose love for her child could be driving her slowly mad; and the youngster portraying the daughter is utterly flawless throughout. Nakata's direction is suitably creepy and makes good use of a chilling musical score.
To be truthful, though, I'm surprised DARK WATER has had the mass critical acclaim it has. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie and plan to watch it again soon but, as a horror movie, it just doesn't deliver. The scares are definitely scary - there's just too few of them - and while this works as a drama, horror fans may be disappointed. Not the next RINGU, I'm afraid. *** / *****
I personally don't think Nakata - or anyone else for that matter - will ever match the sheer intensity, suspense and ingenuity of RINGU (certainly not for a while, anyway) and it's unfortunate that his latest effort - also based on a Koji Suzuki novel - has to be compared to that. It's impossible not to, however, and while DARK WATER has a few chilling moments, it suffers from a woeful lack of pace and a rather incomprehensible plot which ultimately result in a disappointing feature.
Acting is magnificent, with Hitomi Kuroki giving a performance to rival anything I've seen in Asian cinema as the distraught mother whose love for her child could be driving her slowly mad; and the youngster portraying the daughter is utterly flawless throughout. Nakata's direction is suitably creepy and makes good use of a chilling musical score.
To be truthful, though, I'm surprised DARK WATER has had the mass critical acclaim it has. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie and plan to watch it again soon but, as a horror movie, it just doesn't deliver. The scares are definitely scary - there's just too few of them - and while this works as a drama, horror fans may be disappointed. Not the next RINGU, I'm afraid. *** / *****