Movie Review by Neils Hesse
Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Ariel Gade, Dougray Scott, Pete Postlethwaite, Tim Roth
Director: Walter Salles
DARK WATER is a US remake of the 2002 Japanese film of the same title directed by Hideo Nakata and the talent both behind the camera and in front of it is more than worthy.
In a nutshell Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) and her daughter Ceci (Ariel Gade) move into a dingy, creepy apartment in an equally dingy apartment building complete with a particularly sleazy building supervisor, amusingly portrayed by Pete Postlethwaite. Cue a truly horribly disgusting leaking ceiling in their bedroom, that just doesn’t seem to stop and Ceci’s newly acquired imaginary friend who seems to be causing her more harm than good. So the scene is set for your basic horror fest, right? Well not quite, please read on.
The premise is very good, the performances are all first class and the film is definitely high-quality viewing but the film is being marketed as a basic horror film but it is definitely not. Instead this is a thoughtful melancholic, psychological, supernatural dramatic thriller that has elements of a horror.
So as long as you watch the film with an open mind you should appreciate what Walter Salles has done with it and combined with very credible supporting acts from Tim Roth, John C Reilly and Dougray Scott, it is all very well packaged.
So to conclude, is this US remake of DARK WATER worth your while? In my book it is.
