credit: www.amazon.com
Director:
Walter Salles
Cast:
Jennifer Connelly …. Dahlia
John C. Reilly …. Mr. Murray
Tim Roth …. Jeff Platzer
Dougray Scott …. Kyle
Pete Postlethwaite …. Veeck
Ariel Gade …. Ceci
The Movie:
It’s hard not to compare a remake to the original, especially when the remake in question is so boring, bland, and pointless. Hollywood needs to leave horror to the Japanese who seem to be the only ones able to do it well anymore.
Dark Water is the story about Dahlia, a woman going through a divorce, trying to keep custody of her daughter, and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It doesn’t help that the apartment she’s moved into is leaking water all over the place and her daughter, Ceci, has a new imaginary friend named Natasha, who happens to be the dead girl “living” upstairs.
The landlord, Mr. Murray, is unwilling to help and the manager, Veeck, seems to not want anything to do with Dahlia and her problems. The only person Dahlia seems to have on her side is her new lawyer, Jeff. But this won’t do her any good. Little does she realize that it’s not just a run down apartment that she’s living in but that the ghost is after her. She wants a new mommy.
While the original Dark Water is a slow moving, mysterious, atmospheric, and genuinely creepy film, this Hollywood suck fest is a slow moving, obvious, spelled out snoozer. Both films tell basically the same story and end similarly but director Walter Salles somehow manages to take everything interesting out, leaving nothing but the ghost of a horror movie behind.
One stand out case is when the daughter finds the backpack on the roof. In the original the backpack gets thrown away only for the daughter to find it on the roof again. This happens a few times and gets creepier and creepier every time it happens. In the remake she finds the backpack, it’s thrown away, then only near the end of the film does she get it back again. All creepiness has been wrung out.
One moment that stays the same in both movies is when the creepiness begins. Dahlia is pouring herself a class of water from the bathroom and a chunk of hair comes out of the faucet. Visually this is unsettling because that’s something that just shouldn’t happen and the end of the film explains why it did. But again in Salles’ version of the film this great moment just doesn’t come off as creepy.
And while I’m not going to ruin the ending for you trust me when I say the original is a lot more startling and hits you ten times harder. Part of what makes the original so good is not only how much of the film is implied but once the mother starts going down the dark path it doesn’t let up. The remake has the classic wrap up where every thing is fine before the final “scare” hits and it just doesn’t work here.
Why can’t Hollywood get it through their heads that the audience isn’t completely stupid? This film spells everything out for you leaving nothing to the imagination.
Even Connelly, Reilly, and Roth, who have more than proven their skills as actors, can do nothing with the trite dialogue they’ve been given.
This DVD claims to be an Special Unrated Version that is more terrifying… I’m sure glad I didn’t see it in the theater.
Hey I’ve got an idea for a horror film. All the ghosts of Japanese horror films that have been destroyed by Hollywood hacks come back to haunt those who did the crappy remakes of their films.
Story: 6/10
Acting: 6/10
Look/Feel: 5/10
Originality: 3/10
Entertainment Value: 3/10
Total Score: 23/50
Final Score: 4.5/10
The DVD:
The Video
The video transfer is fine, all the suckiness is beautifully preserved for your viewing torture. The film is presented in Widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16×9 televisions.
The Audio
The film sounds great too. The “spookiness” comes at you from all sides with this Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround presentation.
SPECIAL FEATURES: 2 deleted Scenes, and 4 featurettes.
Beneath The Surface: The Making Of Dark Water: It’s hard to watch a featurette like this, which talks about how great the film is when you know the truth. You’ve just watched the film and you know it isn’t as good as they say. Especially when one of the chapters is called “a director’s vision” when the film didn’t seem to have any vision at all.
The Sound Of Terror: This featurette talks (surprise!) about the use of sound in the film to give it a creepy, horror feel. Again it’s hard to watch these guys talk about how great the sound of the film is when the sound really wasn’t that good.
Extraordinary Ensemble: This is the most masturbatory of the featurettes. Everyone is given a chance to talk about how great everyone in this film is. And if I here one more person say this movie is like a Polanski film, I will shoot them!
Analyzing Dark Water Scenes: This is just what it sounds like. More of your time is wasted while you watch the filmmakers talk about 3 specific scenes in the movie and how great they are and why they chose the shots they chose and everything. If they were smart they would have chosen not to make the film at all.
Deleted Scenes: They should just stop putting deleted scenes on DVDs. 90% of the time the deleted scenes were deleted for a reason. The two on this disc are no exception to that rule.
Also includes trailers for Annapolis, Flightplan, Shopgirl, and Sin City.
Score: 1/10
