Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Dark Water (2005)

4/24/2016

Dark Water (2005) - Salles' great, intensely creepy chiller

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Remake of the Year

The chilling poster for Walter Salles' Dark Water

QUICK REVIEW:

A divorce-torn mother moves into a shabby building with her daughter, whom the father does everything in his power to regain custody over. The flat is plagued by water damages, and both mother and daughter experience disturbing occurrences.

Dark Water is a remake of Hideo Nakata's (Ringu (1998)) great Japanese horror movie of the same name from 2002, written by Rafael Yglesias (From Hell (2001)) and directed by Brazilian master filmmaker Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries/Diarios de Motocicleta (2004)). It is an atmospherically dense horror, which lives up to the high quality of the original with intriguing characters, which has more to them than revealed at first glance.
Jennifer Connelly (Requiem for a Dream (2000)) knows her stuff in the lead, and she is supported by Tim Roth (Youth without Youth (2007)), John C. Reilly (The Lobster (2015)) and Pete Postlethwaite (The Constant Gardener (2005)), who all give fine performances. Ariel Gade (Call of the Wild (2009)), who portrays the girl, is also convincing.
Dark Water has skilled production design by Thérèse DePrez (The Drop (2014)) and ditto photography by Affonso Beato (The Queen (2006)) as well as an eminent score by Angelo Badalamenti (A Late Quartet (2012)), which results in a thoroughly unpleasant creeper in the vein of Repulsion (1965)). Dark Water is an impressively strong goosebumps and nightmare machine...

Related review:

Walter Salles: On the Road (2012) - A great ensemble and cinematography make Salles' good Kerouaca adaptation overcome its flaws

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

In lieu of a trailer for the film, which isn't to be found on Youtube currently, here's a 2012 interview with director Walter Salles

Cost: 30 mil. $
Box office: 49.4 mil. $
= Big flop
[Dark Water was released July 8 and runs 105 minutes. It opened #4 to a 9.9 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 25.4 mil. $ (51.4 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Mexico with 2.9 mil. $ (5.9 %) and the UK with 2.5 mil. $ (5.1 %). The film flopped mainly due to its illogically high budget. Dark Water fared poorly with critics generally, who didn't seem able to appreciate its many qualities. It is rotten at 46 % with a 5.5 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

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Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

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Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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4/24/2016

Dark Water (2005) - Salles' great, intensely creepy chiller

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