31 Spooky Nights: Dark Water

Dahlia Williams and her daughter Cecelia move into a rundown apartment on New York’s Roosevelt Island. Dahlia is currently in the midst of divorce proceedings and the apartment is all she can afford. From the time she arrives, there are mysterious occurrences and there is a constant drip from the ceiling in the only bedroom. There are also noises coming from the apartment directly above hers, though it would appear to be vacant. What is happening in apartment 10F?

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Billy: I can be easily swayed by a great cast. Tony Shalhoub, Matthew Lillard, and F. Murray Abraham definitely got me euphoric over Thir13en Ghosts, so I positively jumped out of my seat when I saw Jennifer Connelly, Pete Postlethwaite, John C. Reilly, and Tim Roth all involved in Dark Water. They’re all incredible character actors, with each bringing something totally different to the role that only they could provide. Every character in this story is broken in some way, and it informs a narrative that’s filled with pain and suffering, whether the character tries to mask it or not. There are layers to everything, and the actors are good enough to fill in any holes that the script might have left hanging. You could argue that good actors have been involved in middling projects before, but the fact that there are so many of them in this sells it. I believed in this story, in this world, so much more strongly because of the actors who were in it.

Amelia: This is another one of those slow-burning, story and character driven horror movies that was marketed all wrong. I know trailers have to make a movie look flashy and entertaining so people will go and see it, but when you take the half dozen scenes from the movie that are flashy and entertaining and good trailer fodder, people will go in expecting an entirely different movie. I think that’s why Dark Water isn’t looked on as kindly as other American remakes of J-horror. Like The Ring before it, Dark Water relies on building up an intimidating atmosphere with good acting. And since Dark Water has Jennifer Connelly… well, ‘nuff said.

Billy: The scene where John C. Reilly shows off the “features” of the apartment is supposed to be a depressing wake up call to the audience. Unfortunately, this apartment seems to have more features than the one I currently live in. A doorman? A dishwasher?! I honestly don’t care if there’s ghosts anymore, sign me up. I joke, but it also meant that I totally understood the source of horror that living in a not-quite-up-to-code building can bring. I’ve felt the ga-tonk of a shaky elevator. I’ve looked up at the ceiling and wondered who’s walking around above my head.

That’s what makes it perfect as a haunted house story. You don’t have a big audience out there who live in Victorian manors anymore, so tell me all you want about houses settling or creaking floorboards but I don’t have the experience to relate that to my daily life. Flickering lights in a stairwell? Abandoned apartments leaving uninhabited space for something unknown to dwell in right above the place you lay your head down at night? Yeah, that I know. This building has atmosphere, and we very rarely leave it or its “brutalist” complex throughout the film. We’re trapped here in a  self-contained world, and that’s exactly what you want for horror.

Amelia: I love haunted house stories. I think you all know this by now. But I don’t think I’ve ever said my favourite house for a ghost to haunt, and that’s apartment buildings. A ghost in a large Gothic mansion or abandoned farmhouse are classic situations that I love, but in a world that sees more people living communally in large apartment buildings than isolated in mansions or farmhouses? It’s like Billy just said, an apartment haunting just makes sense.

Just picture it. Creepy, echoing hallways and stairwells, usually devoid of life. Dank underground parking. Elevators with weak lighting. Possible construction stirring up bugs, rodents, maybe even something a little more sinister, like spirits. Fun story, a few years ago the neighbours living right above us flooded their apartment and subsequently, flooded Billy and my’s apartment too. Water poured out of our cupboards in the kitchen, around the door frame to the bathroom, and through cracks in the stucco in the bedroom ceiling. It was our very own Dark Water and even without the ghosts, it was stressful as fuck. Anyone who has ever lived in a “technically” up to code but still shitty apartment will immediately feel an anxiety and tension from this movie. Not a lot of movies scare you before the ghosts show up, but Dark Water does.   

Billy: This was one of those movies where everything just fit so well. It didn’t try to go too big or too broad. It was character-focussed horror that used everything it had to its fullest advantage. You got a sense of Dahlia’s one major weakness really being her relationship with her mother, and it’s a trauma that haunts her well into her adult life. Being a bad mother, to her, is the worst possible path for her life because she knows what it’s like to be on the other end. She empathises with the ghostly girl because she’s been there, and it makes it hard for her to see her as a villain, until the very end. There’s nuance to this story where nobody is a monster. Those you don’t expect become greater monsters than the ghosts, but motivations are always clear, even if you don’t agree with them.

Amelia: The original short story that Dark Water comes from was written by Koji Suzuki, who fans of J-horror will recognize as the author of The Ring. Dark Water was the name of the full collection, and “Floating Water” the name of the story that inspired both the Japanese and American movies. I honestly wish every story in the book had been adapted and made into something as visually appealing and atmospheric as Dark Water.  

Spooky Verdict

Billy: Nine dripping faucets out of ten

This movie came at just the right time in our viewing order to make me love it. I love horror that I can connect to on a personal level, and as we see in Jennifer Connolly’s big breakdown scene, it doesn’t need a supernatural force in this movie at all for it to work. The ending takes one step too far away from that for my tastes, but everything prior to that is just so well done that I’m going to forgive it. It’s about the journey, not the destination, after all, and I totally get why American audiences needed an ending that delivered on the promise of a standard horror film. But when it wasn’t that? Oh, God, I loved it so much.

Amelia: Seven dripping faucets out of ten

I’ve never seen the Japanese original so I can’t speak for it, but the American remake of Dark Water is on the same level as the American remake of The Ring. It’s atmospherically stunning, acted beautifully by Connelly and her in-movie child (how often can you claim a child actor in a horror movie is a good actor?), and overall, it’s just a good self-contained ghost story.