Hideo Nakata must have a fascination with girls and dirty water. He took the world by storm with 'Ring' which involved a creepy girl in a well, and now this. A single mother and her daughter move into a new apartment in order to try and win sole custody of her child. However, she starts experiencing unexplainable sounds and startling visions which questions her mental well-being. An interesting combination, and one that works effectively. Merging supernatural tension with a family's emotional struggle, the symbolism and metaphorical analogies of divorce is apparent. How it can destroy not just the people around you, but also belongings and ownership of possessions. One may consider the ghostly entity to be a reminder of the emotional distress you can go through during a divorce. Other perspectives may just include the fact that she moved into a dilapidated complex where her ceiling is leaking. That's right, two valuable lessons here. Firstly, if your ceiling is leaking...abandon your home and save yourselves. Secondly, if you are running late to pick up your child from school...God damn tell someone! Nonetheless, Nakata directed another chilling horror with many effective camera placements where ghostly imagery can be seen in the distance. Hitomi Kuroki beautifully acted the innocent mother, she held the film together. Really emotional scene towards the end where mother and daughter are separated by an elevator, I felt the feels. Whilst it is a horror, it's not particularly scary. It's more focussed on the family drama. The ghost's motives were extremely ambiguous. At certain points she becomes aggressive and malicious, but her unfortunate demise was her own doing. I'm not entirely convinced that she needed to be the antagonist, particularly during the third act. I can see why, it just felt rushed and spontaneous. Also the last ten minutes could've been cut to make a tighter film. Yet again, another good Japanese horror where the American remake pales in comparison.

"Honogurai mizu no soko kara" or "Dark Water" is the first movie of Dark Water three years before the American version and I have to say that this movie is really better than the American version. This version has more suspense, action and is more creepy than the American and I believe that it's also the definition of a horror movie.After "The Ring", "The Ring 2", "Grudge" and more Japanese movies (or based on Japan culture) we watch this one. First of all the whole movie is based on the novel of Kôji Suzuki which is really impressive. Secondly Hideo Nakata did a great job in the direction of this movie. Thirdly the interpretations of Hitomi Kuroki who plays as Yoshimi Matsubara was magnificent and Rio Kanno who played as Ikuko Matsubara when she was 6 years old is outstanding.Finally I have to say that "Dark Water" is a really nice horror movie which has to give you and it can transfer to us many feelings from the actors and that is something that direction and especially Hideo Nakata did a very good job under the guidance of course of Kôji Suzuki.

Huge horror fan so if your looking for a horror aficionado's take on the movie then read this brief review Good Story, eeriness abounds, decent scares yet lacking the punch that I neededMore chilling than scary I guess. Read some review so I watched it. Not gonna lie kinda disappointed. Solid story but other horror movies deal with similar themes and are just handled better. very dreary. almost too much. weather is shite in every scene. maybe if the movie was more stylized i would have liked it. Some decent scares but I watched shutter from Thailand the day before and that blew this out of the water in terms of scares. maybe biased on scare factor because shutter was so recently watchedIdk i cant say its bad. its definitely a decent movie but not great.

Another exceptional ghost story from Japan. The set-up on this one's familiar: a lonely mother, her precocious child, a creepy run-down apartment block haunted by the ghost of a little dark-haired girl. So far, so par for the course. Where the film excels is in two places: script and direction. The script delivers an ultimately moving, affecting story peopled by realistic characters we get to know and care about. Sure, there are no jump-in-your-seat moments as in some other Japanese ghost films, but they're not required; by the end, the film has turned into nothing less than a tragedy, and the horror is driven to the background.The direction is sublime (you'd expect as much, given that RING's Hideo Nakata is the man behind the lens). The dripping patch on the ceiling becomes monstrous in itself, and the atmosphere is palpable in every sequence. I loved the way that obvious scenes aren't shown, they don't need to be shown, the focus is on mood instead. Hollywood managed a decent remake of this, but even that had to show obvious stuff that wasn't required. Add in a cast giving top-notch performances and you have one of the finest the genre has to offer.