Honeybeads Blog

- No Stars - This film was touted as being from the creators of Ringu and The Ring 2. If you liked any of The Ring movies, you're going to hate Dark Waters. If you prefer your ghost stories with big budget special effects and plenty of CGI rendered spooks, you're going to hate Dark Waters. But - if you like slow-paced, plot driven movies with intelligent screenplays, you're going to hate this movie. See a theme developing here? I'm sorry to say that, for me, this movie fell flat on all areas.

Wow...where to begin. The plot behind this movie was unoriginal, uninteresting, and completely predictable. This is another iteration of the ghost-child terrorizing the living for a reason that is supposed to be revealed in the end. However, you will likely figure the outcome of the movie about 1/3 of the way through, especially when you see a certain landmark that is very out of place to begin with. The outcome is very simple and somewhat silly, really - the motivation for this ghost's hauntings turn out to be pretty boring. To top it off, the director pulls two cheap fades-to-black at the end of the movie. I assum this is an attempt to fool the audience into thinking it's finally over. This was especially infuriating because by the end, I really DID want it to be over.

The acting in the film by the main characters is decent but pretty flat. Jennifer Connelly does a decent job considering the corny script but you never really feel attached to her or really care about what happens to her. The guy that plays Connelly's separated husband looks like they pulled him out from under the dumpster of a nearby alley just prior to each shoot. He always looks dirty and disheveled, not the image of a man that you could picture the likes of Connelly's character having married. Tim Roth's character is unnecessarily wierd. He tells insignificant lies for no apparent reason. For some unclear reason, the film makers show some off-the-wall scenes with Roth that I guess were intended to make the audience suspicious of this guy. There is likewise a scene with Connelly's husband where she sees him chatting with two young punks who had just threatened her. Neither man's supsicious behavior is explained in the end, so I guess this was added just to throw us off track?

Perhaps the single saving grace in the film is John C. Reilly's performance. He's the building manager who sells Connelly on the apartment and his sales pitch is quite entertaining. That's about the only positive thing I can say about this flick. It didn't even manage to create a single good scare and there was nothing creepy about the atmosphere or the central ghost.

I was really looking forward to seeing this film and was very disappointed by it. I've really become a fan of the Asian horror movie and truly enjoyed the recent American remakes of Ju-on (The Grudge) and Ringu (The Ring). I hope that this movie is just a bump in the road and that the Asian movie market continues to turn out the back-the-basic, genuinely scary horror flicks that really get under your skin. I am looking forward to Hideo Nakata's American remake of the Pang Brothers' The Eye, which is a great movie in it's Chinese version.

Brian's Bottom Line: Save your money. Rent The Eye instead.