Dark Water (Blu-ray) (2005)

"Seductively spooky.  Jami Bernard, New York Daily News
"A distressing, subtly suspenseful film full of emotional resonance.  Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times
"With his stirring visual sense very much intact here, Salles sets the creepy mood eloquently...  Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter

Editor's Note Based on a story by Japanese novelist Koji Suzuki and a film by Hideo Nakata (THE RING), DARK WATER is a thrilling exercise in psychological terror. Jennifer Connelly stars as Dahlia, a troubled woman who is battling her husband, Kyle (Dougray Scott), for custody of their young daughter, Ceci (Ariel Gade). Low on cash, Dahlia moves with Ceci into a creepy apartment building on Roosevelt Island in New York City--and soon discovers that something very wrong is going on one floor above them. As black water drips down ominously from the ceiling in her bedroom, Dahlia is unable to get help from the real estate agent in charge (the appropriately mysterious John C. Reilly) or his very strange employee (a grizzled Pete Postlethwaite). Around the time Ceci starts going to her new school, she also seems to have developed a very dangerous invisible friend with eerie ties to the apartment above. Believing that Kyle might be gaslighting her, Dahlia turns to a rather curious lawyer (Tim Roth) who appears to work out of his car. All the while, memories of her strained relationship with her mother begin flooding her mind and giving her debilitating migraines. Brazilian director Walter Salles's (THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, CENTRAL STATION) first Hollywood film, DARK WATER cleverly paces itself before unleashing a terrifying conclusion.

	Dougray Scott
	Jennifer Connelly
	John C. Reilly
	Tim Roth
	Affonso Beato - Cinematographer
	Angelo Badalamenti - Original Music By
	Ashley Kramer - Executive Producer
	Daniel Rezende - Editor
	Doug Davison - Producer
	Koji Suzuki - Based On Novel By
	Rafael Yglesias - Screenplay
	Walter Salles - Director

Entertainment Weekly
"[T]his metaphorically charged spook show about abandonment and childhood ghosts stands on its own." 06/24/2005 p.147-148

Entertainment Weekly
"[Salles] has made, in effect, the first collapse-of-the-middle-class horror movie." 07/15/2005 p.51-52

Uncut
"Connelly plays it like she means it and Salles surrounds her with top-notch Brits....Expert genre filmmaking." 09/01/2005 p.142

ReelViews 7 of 10
Dark Water is the latest in the gaggle of Japanese ghost stories turned into major American motion pictures. The obvious virtue of this effort is that, unlike its predecessors The Ring and The Grudge, it makes sense. The problem is that director Walter Salles confuses atmosphere with torpor. Dark Water has plenty of creepy moments, but few scares, and it becomes bogged down in setup. The payoff is also a little disappointing in that it mines familiar territory, offering little that's original or surprising. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Dark Water achieves some, but not all, of what we might hope for. It is not Rosemary's Baby. The acting is effective, the supporting roles are performed with relish by the skilled technicians Postlethwaite, Reilly and Roth...The climax is certainly over the top, and we're never quite sure how all the parts of the mystery fit together, but then the movie is about the horror of the mystery, not about its solution. Most important, I cared about the Jennifer Connelly character; she is not a horror heroine, but an actress playing a mother faced with horror. There is a difference, and because of that difference, Dark Water works. - Roger Ebert