Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another shakey-hand review of the American remake of DARK WATER. I love the set-up for the original, I love a lot of the characters, but I never really found it very scary. It looked pretty and was a solid film, but didn't really stand out to me. I'm curious to see this if only to see this new cast work together. I've had a crush on Jennifer Connelly since LABYRINTH (and she's a good actress to boot!) and I've had a crush on John C. Reilly since BOOGIE NIGHTS... erm... I mean I've been a FAN of John C. Reilly's since BOOGIE NIGHTS... yeah... C'mon, who doesn't want to hug that guy in MAGNOLIA? Anyway, here's hoping they can pull this one off before their release date!
Hey Harry and House Haunters,
My ring of underground spies informed me of an advanced test screening of Walter Salles’s Dark Water starring Jennifer Connelly. I sneaked over to Pasadena incognito and infiltrated the screening.
Based on a 2002 Japanese horror film that I have not seen, Connelly plays a soon to be divorced mother of a six-year-old girl. They move into an apartment where water drips, creepiness tries flowing, and the rent is cheap.
The daughter, impressively portrayed by young Ariel Gade, begins talking to an imaginary friend who may or may not be real. Stress piles up. The ceiling keeps leaking. Ex-husband harasses. Untamed ghosts persist. The mother’s mental soundness is questioned. Everything threatens to collapse.
Connelly and Gade turn in stellar performances with solid support from John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, and Pete Postlethwaite in this languid, plodding thriller.
Walter Salles is gifted at straight-ahead drama (see The Motorcycle Diaries) but here he doesn’t create tension, suspense, or an all-enveloping mood. For instance, there are many helicopter shots overlooking the haunted building. Wouldn’t it be more atmospheric with the camera looking up from below so apartments grimly imposed? He relies on overbearing music to scare instead of impeccably timed forceful shot compositions that drown in dread.
This is the kind of film Roman Polanski would have nailed in the 60s employing wicked visual tricks and surreal menace to thrust you in the swirling psychological instability of the protagonist.
Dark Water, unfortunately, is dull and slack.
Now it was stated at the beginning of the screening this is a work in progress with unfinished music cues and visual effects. Hold back the music and edit the movie down by at least a forth. Maybe something can be resuscitated yet.
Quite frankly though, I’ve seen so many Asian or Asian inspired horror movies with ghosts spooking and popping around that nothing is new here. Maybe as a horror junkie I’m jaded, but I’ve been disappointed with the sub-genre as a whole—with the major exception of Takashi Miike’s work.
I fled back to the underground. I kept my plasma stream rifle handy in case any ghosts tried to get me.
-Psychedelic
