Dark Waters

You've all managed to convince yourself that this is some deep work of genius, but the creator himself has admitted that he was forced to reshoot half of it by his producers and that is what resulted in this boring, incoherent mess that wasn't what he had in mind for this movie at all. Even the director of this movie has gone on record saying that the second half of this movie is crap!

Stop deluding yourselves. You're all stroking yourselves over how deep and avant garde this is, yet it was forced on a director by corporate producers looking to make this more mainstream. It's ridiculous.

Maybe it could have lived up to its potential without the interference, but that didn't happen. The reality is that this is a broken mess and a failed experiment in film-making.

If you already think the title of this user-comment is weird, just wait until you see the rest of the movie! Mariano Baino's "Dark Waters" is an old-fashioned creepy chiller and perhaps even the most underrated horror film of the last three decades. It's definitely the best Italian horror film of the nineties, along with Michele Soavi's "Dellamorte Dellamore", even though they severely differ in tone and content. The plot of "Dark Waters" is very confusing and contains an incredible amount of holes; still Biano manages to create a genuinely unsettling atmosphere and stuffs his film with nightmarish images and unlikely monsters. The beautiful Elizabeth travels back to the remote and hard-to-reach island where she spent her childhood years in a convent. Even though her mother died here and despite the fact her father advised her on his deathbed never to return, Elizabeth is drawn to the convent, more particularly to the ominous dungeons and hidden passageways. The creepy setting of "Dark Waters" reminded me a lot of "The Name of the Rose". Due to their strict and isolated life-styles, the nuns in this convent look mad and petrifying (some of them appear to be more than 150 years old!) and together they hide dark and very UN-catholic secrets. It's truly odd, but also strangely disturbing, to see nuns running around with burning torches and damaged crucifixes. "Dead Waters" also features a handful of grisly images and a fairly gruesome finale, but the film is mostly about style and atmosphere. It's practically always raining on this island, the nights seem to last twice as long as the days and even the villagers that live outside the convent look spooky. The music is very good, too, and lead actress Louise Salter is fascinating to look at. If the script had been a little more coherent and structured, this would have been a brilliant horror film. Now, it's just a very good one.

It's best to walk into Dark Waters knowing that it's going to be an exercise of style over substance. As great and moody as the atmosphere of this movie is, the story itself is murky and hard to pin down. As best as I can tell, it's about a young woman whose father dies and she visits a strange island monestary that her father had been sending money to for years. Once she gets there, she gets the feeling that she's very unwelcome and she might unearth some truths that are better left buried.

One thing Dark Waters gets right is the atmosphere. If I didn't know any better, I'd truly believe this was a film shot in the mid-70's by some Italian horror master. It's beautifully shot with so much attention to detail. It's just a shame that the script didn't seem to have as much thought put into it. At one point, the lead character is attacked by a psychotic nun and she reacts to this as if she's just stubbed her toe. There's no sense of urgency at all. Wouldn't someone who'd just been attacked want to get out of there as soon as possible?

A young woman travels to a mysterious, unnamed island to find out why her belated father funded a strange monastery.

Dark Waters has disappeared off the planet. I wouldn't have known about it had I not read Mark Kermode's autobiography. I'm also a fan of the Tartan Video and they put out this one as a limited VHS release in 1995. Dark Waters is similar in style to the Italian Giallo films, especially the more atmospheric ones. It reminded me a bit of early Mario Bava and Soavi's The Church. The film is very atmospheric with excellent lighting and cinematography which hide its small budget. The film has drawn comparisons to Lovecraftian fiction with its use of religious themes, the unknown and suspicion of outsiders. There's further comparisons to be made to The Wicker Man. Dark Waters gets jumbled up in it storytelling and becomes lost in its own ambiguity. This is a film were a longer running time would be beneficial to iron out some of the creases.

Dark Water is a stylish and interesting horror film with some scares and some strong violence. Sadly the plot is messy and the brief bloody scenes can't save what is effectively Giallo-lite. The film is not some hidden gem or lost masterpiece. It's an above average stylish horror film that came out at a time when the market was over saturated with Straight-To-Video slashers. The film has had a Blu-Ray release which features a nice albeit soft matte picture and crisp, clean sound. There's also a rare 2-disc DVD with a replica of the stone amulet.

Often the camera-work struck me as surreal, entrancing and dreamlike, picking unusual shots or showing unusual images. I think it is fair to compare this movie with some of Argento's better horror work such as Suspiria and Inferno, even though it is not at that level. Dark Waters takes its time, though, and does not at all have a rock pace like Argento, at least in spots, has in his films.

Another fair comparison might be to Fulci's Demonia, but I feel this was better than that.

There is relatively little dialogue, making this, perhaps "pure cinema." Unfortunately, what dialogue there was was sometimes very low, so that I had to keep raising and lowering the volume, possibly a flaw of the DVD copy I viewed (possibly actually a VCD, I think). However, some characters' accents were also a little difficult to decipher, and while that may have been intentional, it would have been nice to have had an option of subtitles.

Some of the characters' motivation was also mysterious to me. Are all the nuns on the same side or not? Whose side are they on? Why was Sarah different than Elizabeth? Why was the father sending money to the nuns? Where was the church located?

Despite these questions, I was very taken by the movie, and would watch it again.