Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The Movie Diorama Hideo Nakata must have a fascination with girls and dirty water. He took the world by storm with 'Ring' which involved a creepy girl in a well, and now this. A single mother and her daughter move into a new apartment in order to try and win sole custody of her child. However, she starts experiencing unexplainable sounds and startling visions which questions her mental well-being. An interesting combination, and one that works effectively. Merging supernatural tension with a family's emotional struggle, the symbolism and metaphorical analogies of divorce is apparent. How it can destroy not just the people around you, but also belongings and ownership of possessions. One may consider the ghostly entity to be a reminder of the emotional distress you can go through during a divorce. Other perspectives may just include the fact that she moved into a dilapidated complex where her ceiling is leaking. That's right, two valuable lessons here. Firstly, if your ceiling is leaking...abandon your home and save yourselves. Secondly, if you are running late to pick up your child from school...God damn tell someone! Nonetheless, Nakata directed another chilling horror with many effective camera placements where ghostly imagery can be seen in the distance. Hitomi Kuroki beautifully acted the innocent mother, she held the film together. Really emotional scene towards the end where mother and daughter are separated by an elevator, I felt the feels. Whilst it is a horror, it's not particularly scary. It's more focussed on the family drama. The ghost's motives were extremely ambiguous. At certain points she becomes aggressive and malicious, but her unfortunate demise was her own doing. I'm not entirely convinced that she needed to be the antagonist, particularly during the third act. I can see why, it just felt rushed and spontaneous. Also the last ten minutes could've been cut to make a tighter film. Yet again, another good Japanese horror where the American remake pales in comparison.

MartinHafer When I began watching "Dark Water" I was surprised to see that the film was dubbed into English. In recent years, dubbing has nearly died out and subtitles have reigned supreme, so I was surprised. However much I dislike dubbing, however, the quality of this dub was actually pretty good.The story begins with a mother and her young daughter going through a divorce. Her husband is fighting her for custody, so the woman feels a lot of pressure to get a job and an apartment. While she is able to do both, the pressure only gets worse as the apartment building appears to be haunted by the spirit of some creepy child. And, thought the course of the film, this creepy kid seems to be calling out to the mother and her girl. What's next? See the film.While many of the story elements are very familiar if you've seen more than a few Japanese horror films, they are assembled quite well. Plus, most importantly, the mood is excellent--with creepy music and effective direction and editing to create the proper mood. Well worth seeing.

Tokyo-1997 This movie is entertaining in numerous ways and has many nice scare. I do not find this movie slow pacing at all. I thought it was very well paced. The ending of this movie was very touching and well made. The storyline was decent but there were some plot holes. This movie, unlike ringu, contains both touching and creepy scenes. This movie has much more scares than ringu, cause ringu only has one scary scene. But the scary scene in ringu is much much more frightening than this movie. So overall, ringu was scarier and much more entertaining. The storyline of ringu was better than this. However, although ringu was much more entertaining than this movie dark water, dark water has got very good development of the characters. This movie deals very well with themes such as "Family", "Love", "Mother Daughter Relationship". The ending for this movie was an extremely sad one. There should be more character development for the ghost. Other than that, this is a wonderful movie that deserves to be watched definitely. Score:8.7/10

Jacques98 I sincerely think this is the most perfect Japanese ghost movie I have ever seen. I say that simply because it is the first Japanese ghost movie I've seen with such a strong emotional core, and such potential to scare. There are a lot of similarities to Ringu, but I think this may be slightly superior. It also has a lot of similarities to The Shining, mainly with the apartment elevator and the way the story unfolds, but it by no means takes anything from The Shining. This movie may not be wholesale original, but it can stand on its own feet, which I can't say about a lot of movies.The reason Dark Water is so effective is because it understands subtlety. In other words, it understands how to take something that could happen in everyday life—like water dripping from the ceiling—and backs it up with a feeling of terror. I'm the biggest fan of over-the-top violence and punk storytelling you're going to meet, but I can also tell you it's rare than something like that that bashes you over the head is going to scare you. There are some exceptions, but I think that the subtle delicate approach this movie had was more effective in the ability to scare someone. I for one was so terrified by this movie that I almost had to turn the lights on—it's been YEARS and HUNDREDS of movies I've seen since something did that to me. There was literally not even a single drop of blood or act of violence, but the subtlety is reminiscent of how we get scared in real life. Slowly. Emotionally.Also, the other thing that makes Dark Water effective is that it doesn't resort to plot clichés or cliché scares. I am the kind of person who sees a little ghost girl and immediately turns the movie off because it's not original enough for me. BUT as I was watching this movie I realized the ghost girl was NOY an added on cliché because the Japanese seem to find them scary, but an actual living, breathing part of the plot. I've always said that it takes a lot of originality to take a genre piece—and Asian ghost movies isn't an underexplored genre—and still have something different about it that makes it incomparable to the rest. Dark Waters isn't quite that original, but it's hard to name another movie exactly like it.Once I got to the ending, this movie had me nearly crying. Maybe I'm a pansy and a sap, but I don't think anyone can deny the strong bond between the mother and daughter was not well portrayed. Without that bond, the plot would fall apart. The acting was flawless and the writing was sharp.The only flaw that I've seen people give this movie is the ending or lack thereof. Personally, I love weird movies, and I think the weirdness of the ending was pretty cool and well done. It defied clichés and it was just . . . weird. *Spoilers* I think I like the fact that the ghost was not a killer ghost more than anything. *End spoilers*Does the movie leave you with any idea of what just happened over the past hour and fifty minutes? Nope. And that's why it was weirdly awesome.5/10