Thursday, April 30, 2009

Dark Water (2002) aka Honogurai Mizu No Soko Kara

1.5 / 5
Tagline: From The Creators Of Japan's Acclaimed RINGU, Inspiration for the hit phenomenon THE RING
Directed By: Hideo Nakata
Written By: Koji Suzuki, Yochihiro Nakamura, Takashige Ichise, Hideo Nakata, Kenichi Suzuki
Actors Include: Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi
Genre: Drama, Horror
Length: 101 minutes
Banned: nope
Country: Japan

Review:
This is such a highly respected film that I seriously feel like I missed something when watching this. I went in to it with the attitude that it was going to be great and I do like Asian horror so I thought this would have been a winner. Instead I was bored to tears waiting for anything to happen. Compared to the remake this is the better choice, but for me the best choice is neither. At least this one does have a bit more atmosphere and it seems a bit stranger, but that could just be because of cultural differences, I'm not sure. A young mother is in the middle of a custody battle over her daughter so they move into this apartment and the ceiling leaks. The landlord doesn't seem to fix the problem and it gets worse. There is also a child's bag that keeps showing up no matter how it's disposed of. Eventually we get the ghost of a dark haired child haunting the scene but I mean very infrequently and only towards the end of the film. Also this child doesn't seem all that scary and when the situation is explained it feels like a "so what" sort of situation. I do see the ties to "The Ring", but the idea was so dramatically improved upon for that film that I have a hard time understanding what anyone sees in this one. This is far from scary, far from bloody and far from interesting, but if you like extremely slow paced dramas this may suit you. Still you may want to entirely disregard me as I seem to be in the minority with my opinion that this is one of the most boring horror films to have ever been made.

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