DARK WATER

Sodden terror

By BRIAN THOMAS     July 17, 2005

Hideo Nakata, the most successful director of the new wave of "J-horror", mines a vein of terror once again and working once again from a novel by the author of RINGU, Koji Suzuki. DARK WATER, or HONOGURAI MIZU NO SOKO KARA as it's known in Japan, also involves the restless ghost of a girl in a watery grave. But this story doesn't rely so much on a hook like a supernatural virus carried on a cursed videotape. Here, Suzuki and Nakata plumb to much darker depths.

Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki of SADA) is already a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown when we first meet her. And it wouldn't be the first time. Yoshimi has a history of mental instability which she says is only a part of her troubled childhood left far in the past. However, the behavior of her soon-to-be ex-husband Kunio (Fumiyo Kohinata), who is trying to get custody of their 6-year old daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno), seems to hint that Yoshimi is even less stable than she seems. In desperation, Yoshimi takes an apartment in a questionable building, and though Ikuko's school is close by, she still has trouble juggling her responsibilities as a mother and restarting her career as a proofreader and editor. And then there's the leak.

At first, she notices a water stain on her ceiling dripping water. This leak becomes a growing annoyance, and her frustration increases when the building manager and real estate agent fail to do anything about it. She also has a nagging suspicion of something underhanded going on though she's told that Ikuko is the only child in the building, she repeatedly catches glimpses of another little girl, and a child's bag seems to reappear in different places, even when thrown in the trash. When she learns the girl she sees looks just like another girl who lived in the apartment above and disappeared mysteriously a few years before, Yoshimi is left with two disquieting solutions to the mystery: either her ex is trying to drive her crazy to get custody, or there are supernatural forces at work.

Ikuko doesn't help matters much, as she often wanders off to play on the roof or the apartment above, sometimes sleepwalking. These incidents don't help Yushimi at all in fighting off legal attacks, convincing someone that there's a ghost in the building, or getting that damn leak fixed. Her rescue seems to be at hand in the person of Kishida (Shigemitsu Ogi), a dashing lawyer who helps out with the custody battle and in forcing the building owner to make repairs. He even offers logical explanations for the supposed supernatural presence. But his help only goes so far, and some ghosts won't go away with a few calm words.

Many directors use water symbolism in their work, and water has been used as a conduit for the supernatural many times before, most significantly in Mariano Baino's similarly titled DARK WATERS. But Nakata's film brings that symbolism to center stage. Seemingly, water doesn't just signal supernatural events it is the supernatural events. The stain on the ceiling doesn't just speak of turmoil up above, it's a part of it, spying down on our heroine from above and spilling down to soak her and her daughter. For once, hellish nightmares don't boil up from below, but rain down from above or come rushing out of our once trusty faucets. But the story's supernatural chills and symbols are intensified by the psychological texture of the piece, which are strong enough to have tempted Hitchcock. While DARK WATERS may not have the hair-raising shudders of RINGU, it has a few creepy weapons of its own, and may seep into your subconscious to cause a few nightmares.

ADV Films gives the film a decent transfer with strong, clear audio, both on the Japanese language track and on the surprisingly well done English dub. The lack of any extras on the disc may point to a rush to get the DVD out in time to cash in on the US remake's run in theaters, but the film is strong enough that it doesn't need any accompanying fanfare.

Copyright © 2005 Brian Thomas, author of the massive book VideoHound's DRAGON: ASIAN ACTION & CULT FLICKS.
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