Dark Water

2002 ‘仄暗い水の底から’ Directed by Hideo Nakata

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.

Hitomi Kuroki Mirei Oguchi Fumiyo Kohinata Asami Mizukawa Rio Kanno Isao Yatsu

Alternative Titles

Honogurai mizu no soko kara, 검은 물 밑에서

horror mystery thriller

101 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by M.K. R. ★★★★½ 4

The everyday horrors of trudging off to a shitty job each morning to do work you hate; of struggling to keep a straight face while you're being crushed by anxiety; of being forced to live in rundown apartments because you can't afford anything else; of your family dissolving; of being abandoned and not missed. It's rare when a horror film can actually scare you—it's an entirely other achievement when it can make you cry.
Review by Ben Hibburd ★★★★½ 10

Sombre and sorrowful, Hideo Nakata's "Dark Water" is literally and figuratively dripping with atmosphere. The film is centred around a single mother, Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) in the midst of a legal battle for custody of her daughter. In order to maintain custody in the meantime she quickly moves into an unkempt apartment complex where a ghostly presence stalks the halls, and a damp spot on her ceiling rapidly expands.
As the film unfolds she starts seeing a little girl in a yellow anorak roaming the halls and elevator. However, things take an uneasy turn when her and her daughter become the focus of the mysterious girls attention.
I liked "Ringu" a fair amount, however, Nakata blows that film out of…
Review by CinemaClown ★★★ 3

Enveloped with a brooding atmosphere that hints at a quietly disturbing dread gurgling beneath its slow-burn narrative, Dark Water is a tale of family, tragedy, isolation & abandonment that's often suspenseful, at times unsettling but never terrifying.
The story concerns a divorced mother who moves into a dilapidated apartment with her daughter to begin a new chapter in their lives. But things soon take a turn for the worse when they start experiencing supernatural occurrences that's got something to do with the floor above.
Directed by Hideo Nakata (best known for Ringu), Dark Water builds its ominous ambience methodically and that sense of foreboding never really goes away. But it's the mother-daughter bonding that drives this story and there is a…
Review by Slig001 ★★★★ 1

Slow, creeping, foreboding horror overlays a tale of loss, sorrow and loneliness in Hideo Nakata's effective ghost story. The plot focuses on a mother who, while going through a messy divorce, moves into a delapidated apartment building; before become the target of some sort of entity. The film works chiefly because it puts all of its focus on the characters and situation. Hideo Nakata brilliantly builds up the atmosphere by way of perfect pacing, in which things are allowed to escalate in a logical way. The film has a real ethereal beauty to it; the sparse industrial feel of the central location melds well with the symbolic water that permeates through it. Like many J-horror films of the time, this…
Review by Logan Jones ★★★★ 1

I don't understand it when people tell me they don't like horror movies. I have a friend who doesn't find them scary, and fair enough, but my older brother doesn't like them because he "doesn't see the appeal" of scaring yourself silly. Personally, I love them. There's something strangely exhilarating in sitting in a dark room, getting scared and fearing for the characters. Furthermore, there seems to be some absurd notion that they should be classified differently to other films, but when done well, and properly, they can be just as good as - if not better than - any other film. Dark Water is a superb example of that notion being utterly wrong.
Directed by Hideo Nakata - who…
Review by Evan ★★★★

Finally, a horror I can relate to: lousy apartment supers
Review by Tao A ★★★★ 12

Damn near suffocated me with that thicc, dripping wet atmosphere. Luckily I’m a fiend for anything thicc and dripping wet so despite the fact that I’m choking and gargling as it’s doing a number on my gag reflex something fierce - just fucking going to town on that bad boy - I still wanted to dive in, head first. And when it finally reaches a nice crescendo - a climax, if you will - as (spoiler alert I suppose) the entire apartment complex is overflowing with that nutrient, thirst-quenching nectar; I was euphoric.
Anyway, best SILENT HILL 4 adaptation that we never got.
Review by Steve G 🐝 ★★★★ 6

In The Month of Madness 2020: Horror 101
World Tour 2020
By and large, I haven't revisited many of the films from the height of the J-Horror and K-Horror crazes.
The main reason for this is because I came to the realisation a few years ago that most of them weren't very good and also that most of them were pretty much exactly the same. For instance, if you had seen the whole of the Whispering Corridors series and I showed you a random clip from one of those films, would you know what film it was from? No you wouldn't. They're exactly the same.
Dark Water is one that I was nervous about revisiting because it was one of…
Review by Patrick Pryor ★★★½

I can't get enough of the rust browns and muted hues and grime and daylight drab coloring most early 2000s J-horror! What ambience! What a distinct L-O-O-K that fills every broke down apartment corner with spectral dread. There's something truly uncanny and terrifying about the stain of past trauma seeping into the benign present until carpet dampens and wallpaper peels and pipes burst and all the ghastly pain and sorrow pools 'til we can't ignore it and drown. Dark Water vibes on this slow-drip atmosphere for a looooooong while before any ghouls bump in the night. But when they surface, they really dig their broken nails deep to drag ya back to the depths. What a heartbreaking and spooky li'l movie that defied my hardened horror expectations!
Review by Freyr ★★★½

I've been in the mood for something moody and atmospheric, and as expected, Nakata tends to come through on that. Dark Water is dripping with unease, his signature apparitions in the background, a damp and decrepit setting, and a soft, haunting score. Despite putting me in the right mood though, the meat of the movie feels a bit too predictable and sparse; never really bad, but not quite captivating. I found the finale to be very strong though, with the keynote scare being both unsettling, and ultimately moving. It closes on an emotional high that left me feeling satisfied.
Review by 𝑤𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑟 ★★★½

i͟’͟m͟ ͟a͟l͟w͟a͟y͟s͟ ͟g͟o͟i͟n͟g͟ ͟t͟o͟ ͟b͟e͟ ͟w͟i͟t͟h͟ ͟y͟o͟u͟
the atmosphere is probably the best asset of the whole film. it drones, leaks, stains and hums like it lives inside of a rusty drain but the overall theme gives it a creepy presence. it’s too slow for my liking but gets credit for building the story that way. not much happens which is what the film goes for and for the most part succeeding. it’s not the best j-horror i’ve seen but it definitely leaves its mark. the ending is very creepy and once you look back at the whole experience it becomes chilling. which saves the presentation for me instead of being a complete bore.
Review by M.K. R. ★★★★½ 1

Thinking about the way the dumbass Hollywood remakes of Japanese genre films take the titles and literalize them in the dialogue because they think American audiences are too stupid to understand metaphor (and let's be honest, they are right).
"You have a GHOST...in your SHELL!!!"
"Before you die you see...THE RING!!"
I haven't seen the Hollywood remake of this but I would not be surprised if there is a line like "gosh this WATER sure is....DARK..."

Recent reviews

Review by Dec ★★½

always building to something, but it never tells, or shows, you what that might be
Review by Ella Mansbridge ★★★½

oh wow. I think I need to watch Thai again before I leave any sort of review in depth BC omg woah
Review by melina ★★★★

directo a mis favoritas de terror
Review by Pugsley McFly ★★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

The movie is more of a sad tale than a horror story. It is about divorce, loneliness, responsibility, and abandonment. (spoiler) It is surprising to see the mother abandon her own biological daughter for a ghost child who drowned a couple of years prior. But sure as hell the child actor portraying her biological daughter knows how to turn on the waterworks during that scene. (/spoiler) This movie is the original adaptation of the book written by Kôji Suzuki. It is a bit more grounded in reality than the 2005 Hollywood remake. The visual style is simple in design. It does not appear bloated with a big-budget for special effects and lavish sets built on a sound stage. It appears to have utilized actual locations, which gives the movie a contextual feel of believability. I liked it that way.
Review by belchiortbh ★★½

se somente existisse algum outro modo de locomoção de um andar para o outro que não os elevadores....... desconheço.....
Review by Deer_Hunter ★★

🏊🏼‍♀️
Review by Astronote ★★★

Shining version flottophobe
Review by phine ★★★½

this movie took ten years off of my life good lord I was so stressed towards the end
Review by Shoganaix ★★½

.
Review by 𝓂𝒶𝓇𝒾𝓈𝒶 ★★★

i don't know, iku-chan had bad vibes
Review by Sophie Darling ★★★★

Tragic and well done. I want to watch it again.!
Review by Andrew ★★★½

Do you know what’s really fucking scary? Water. It’s loud. It’s wet. It gets everywhere. It causes damage. Fuck water dude. Dark Water is about one woman’s quest into possible insanity as she troubles to keep track of her kid in an apartment that is transforming into an aquarium. But not just any aquarium/ A potentially haunted aquarium. Dark Water follows the J Horror formula of “build up a creepy atmosphere, not utilizing much in the way of direct scares in an attempt to make things feel spooky.” And I thought it executed on that rather well.
If the sound of a broken toilet perpetually refilling gets to you, Dark Water is going to force you into therapy. The last…