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Dark Water
仄暗い水の底から
2002 101 min Japan PG-13 18+
★7.0
Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Director: Hideo Nakata
🎭 Based on
«Dark Water»
byKōji Suzuki
Trailers
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Description
A woman in the midst of an unpleasant divorce moves to an eerie apartment building with her young daughter. The ceiling of their apartment has a dark and active leak.
Budget:
$4M
Worldwide:
$1.69M
Starring
Hitomi Kuroki
Actor
Rio Kanno
Actor
Mirei Oguchi
Actor
Awards
6 wins & 2 nominations total
Key opinion
Dark Water is widely regarded as an atmospheric, emotionally resonant psychological drama that prioritizes dread and maternal themes over traditional horror jump scares. While some viewers criticize its slow pacing and lack of overt scares, most praise its masterful use of water as a motif and its poignant, tragic conclusion.
| Score | Kenji Kawai’s score effectively heightens the film's pervasive sense of melancholy and mounting tension. | |
| Production | The film utilizes water as a masterful, omnipresent symbol of both physical decay and emotional abandonment. | |
| Acting | Hitomi Kuroki delivers a convincing, grounded performance as a mother struggling to balance custody battles with supernatural dread. | |
| Direction | Hideo Nakata’s direction successfully cultivates a lingering sense of unease through atmosphere and restraint rather than relying on explicit violence. | |
| Pacing | The film's deliberate, slow-burn approach is perceived by some as a profound exploration of loneliness, while others find the narrative dull and overly repetitive. | |
| Ending | The conclusion is praised by many as a deeply moving, tear-jerking resolution to the mother-daughter dynamic, though some viewers found the ending to be weak or ineffective. |