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Dark Water
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Metascore
52 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 35 Critics What's this?

User Score
5.2 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 43 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Starring: Ariel Gade, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly
  • Summary: Based on a film by the creators of the Japanese version of the "The Ring" comes this haunting, chilling, film about a young mother who goes to extreme lengths to solve a mystery and protect her daughter. (Touchstone Pictures)

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 35
  3. Negative: 5 out of 35
  1. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    Salles brings an explorer's eye and breathless curiosity to this fetid milieu, and he gets the most brilliant performances imaginable for this sort of movie.
  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Michael Rechtshaffen
    60
    With his stirring visual sense very much intact here, Salles sets the creepy mood eloquently, but the picture -- ultimately fails to reward all the little shivers with any satisfying jolts.
  3. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Pete Vonder Haar
    30
    Dark Water isn't a bad horror movie, simply because it isn't horror at all: a full hour passes before anything remotely scary occurs, and all the suspenseful scenes take place in the final ten minutes (and are all fully shown in the trailer). What's left is tedium and a seemingly endless build-up to nothing much at all, making it a bad movie. Period.

See all 35 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 27
  3. Negative: 11 out of 27
  1. SamV.
    8
    The adapted screenplay of Suzuki's story by Hideo Nakata is pretty good, but there are a lot of cliches in that storythat even the interference of the great director Walter Salles was able to fix it. It is not a horror movie like "The Ring" or "The Grudge", but it's very interesting as a suspense movie, that is saved by the great actings, photography and the director's vision. Dark Water is a suspense movie without arrogation and far away from the overproduction status, but the aftermath is great!… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  2. rotku
    5
    I was hoping for better from this movie especially with the talents of both Connolly and Roth on board but I found the "twist" easy to spot from a mile away and within about fifteen minutes of the movie starting. It didn't ruin the movie but it did detract from the suspense and given that this is what the movie is built on there wasn't much else going on to keep my interest.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. Alan
    3
    It never quite became anything. It was neither a horror or psychological film. Jennifer Connely was almost putting me to sleep, the constant rain kept me awake. Why did she stay there?, at the end who cares. It seems the director never made a horror film before.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

See all 27 User Reviews