| Overall Grade: |
D+ |
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| Story: |
D- |
|
|
| Acting: |
C+ |
|
|
| Direction: |
C |
|
|
| Visuals: |
D- |
|
|
Dark Water should have been called Sludge.
by M.E.H (movies profile)
Feb 17, 2007
31
of
41 people found this review helpful
To me, "Dark Water" ranks somewhere between "Hide and Seek" and "The Grudge" in both scariness and overall quality, which pretty much means that it sucks.
The story is basically "The Ring 2" with a slightly different family and a slightly different set of circumstances. Every move is obvious at least fifteen minutes in advance and, like "The Ring 2", the viewer comes out of the movie not really caring all that much about what happens.
The actors try to make this movie work, but the shoddy plotline brings them down so much. As hard as they work to stir our interest, Connelly and Company can't get us to really care about the fate of their characters. The unenthusiastic appearance of everybody's face is because they know that they're in a cheesy movie.
The direction could have been improved in several different ways. First, the director could have tried to make the movie scarier by not giving us so many hints throughout the movie as to what happens. Second, he could have done a better job of getting enthusiastic performances out of the lead characters. Third, and most important, he should have done a better job of creating an ominous environment instead of just assuming that a dumpy apartment building would do the trick for the viewers.
The visuals are sub-par for a movie made in 2005. Everything appears really grainy and dark. I'm assuming that the latter description regarding the film's appearance is intentional in a haphazard attempt to create fear in the audience. The special effects (the torrents of Cola-colored water) just look wrong.
I would not recommend this movie to anybody because it doesn't do what it's supposed to do and there's nothing that redeems it. |
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