Dark Water

Slate David Edelstein

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Most important, I cared about the Jennifer Connelly character; she is not a horror heroine, but an actress playing a mother faced with horror. There is a difference, and because of that difference, Dark Water works.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

This is a quieter, more psychologically dense movie, where the payoff is sometimes no payoff at all - for instance, Tim Roth plays a cut-rate divorce lawyer whose own weirdness (he seems to live out of his car) is never explained.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Salles tends to explain rather than suggest, but he connects with the anguish and abandonment to give this ghost story an emotionally haunting core.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

In a movie with more subtext than "Rosemary's Baby," nearly everyone, including Tim Roth as Dahlia's lawyer, harbors secrets. Salles unleashes a torrent of suspense for one purpose: to plumb the violence of the mind.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

As a sheer ghostly thriller, it's mostly a spell-binder, but I was disappointed at the ending.

Premiere Peter Debruge

Even as Dark Water's horror-movie component flounders, a different, arguably better kind of thriller emerges.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

Brazilian Walter Salles, who previously directed the Oscar-nominated films "Central Station" and "The Motorcycle Diaries," guides this stylish remake through treacherous territory to create a distressing, subtly suspenseful film full of emotional resonance.

Newsweek David Ansen

Builds dread masterfully, but don't expect solace or "fun." This is not for those who like mysteries neatly resolved.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A shudder-by-numbers pseudo-J-horror gothic, full of supernatural stunts you feel as if you've seen before the movie even gets to them.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This picture doesn't have deep enough currents to succeed as a psychological thriller and, as a ghost story, there are times when it has trouble treading water.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Dark Water has more substance and a more interesting look than many horror films, but the familiar elements of the story disappoint.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

While his movie lacks the psychological resonance of "Rosemary's Baby" or "The Sixth Sense," it easily equals their creep-out quotient.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Unlike "The Ring," Dark Water -- which features one of the mad, whispery ghost children who populate such films -- is never actually frightening.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

He [Salles] has managed to create a movie that's pretty bleak for a Hollywood -- especially Disney -- thriller. His theme, as a director, is the indignities of poverty and, in his way, he pays more attention to that agenda than he does in generating any real thrills.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The new version is out of scale with the basic premise -- too much rain, too much water, too much doom, gloom and intricate eccentricity.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Favors character development over rude scares, though given the narrow parameters of the genre, it's not really a worthwhile trade.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

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.

TV Guide Ken Fox

True to form, Salles' version is an intelligent, brooding ghost story brimming with atmosphere, emotions and, above all else, water, but it's disappointingly short on scares.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

There's something that never quite works about the film.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Dark Water devolves into something resembling genre schlock, albeit the kind featuring zesty supporting performances from the classy, Oscar-nominated likes of John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, and Pete Postlethwaite.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Well-crafted but thoroughly unsuspenseful.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The end product is so clunky, scattered, and all-around soggy that sometimes you can't help laughing. At least Connelly and Reilly give their all, and Tim Roth is terrific as a weird lawyer.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

If you can check your brain at the popcorn stand and keep your expectations low, Dark Water is an OK genre exercise that maintains a consistently creepy tone.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

This fake-feminist thriller hides its sadism under a show of sympathy for its beleaguered heroine.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

As the movie is in step with Connelly's aching heroine and not trying to scare our socks off, Dark Water is of a piece with Salles's sensitive filmmaking. Obviously, from a genre standpoint, that presents a tremendous problem. Nobody goes to a horror movie for a good cry.

Village Voice Ed Halter

It fails to deliver the narrative thrill twists its origins would promise.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

If only the explanation and resolution of the action were more compelling, Dark Water might have been a thriller of the first order.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Spins toward its glum, dishwater-gray whirlpool of an ending, which doesn't have nearly as much emotional punch as it should. It doesn't leave you feeling spent -- only soaked.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The movie is prettily shot by Almodóvar collaborator Affonso Beato, but no amount of tastefully desaturated color or imaginary friends going whoo-whoo in the deserted apartment upstairs can save this lumbering echt-thriller from fatal tedium.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Wildly overproduced and filled with fussy flourishes that make even a derelict hallway look like a million bucks, Dark Water fails to rustle up either meaning or meaningful scares.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Dark, dank, damp, grim, dingy and dour, Dark Water is a tasteful but unremitting bummer.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Stripped of every major scary moment and restructured in what feels like a deliberate attempt to remove all suspense, this "horror" movie is now a domestic soap opera.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

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.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The overall emotion the film generates is one of moist, enervated ennui. Who cares if the apartment is haunted when the best the ghost can do is get things a bit damp and run laps on the floor above?