Movie Appraisal: Dark Water (2005)

Some remakes are really good, while others simply aren't. While the remake of the earlier Japanese film Ringu made quite the impression as the American The Ring and was largely praised as both a good movie and horror movie alike, Dark Water has a very dubious distinction of being a remake of a Japanese film that really didn't live up to expectations. I'm going to say before I start that the premise of the film is not incredibly interesting to me, and while I've never seen the Japanese version, I kind of expect I would not like it bsed off of the story itself. So, while this American version may still be bad, I do seem to have a bias against the story of this movie as a whole.

I think that the acting of the movie is mostly subpar, despite some of the really great actors in it. I've really liked Jennifer Connelly in other movies, granted movies that involve a much younger version of her, but still... Pete Postlethwaite and John C. Reilly also have oddly flat performances despite both of them being superb actors in other films. I almost have to believe that the direction of the film has something to do with it... or something. I mean, sometimes the acting is almost wince-worthy. And that certainly cannot be a positive remark. I will say that the second half of the movie does seem to pick up both in acting and in the emotional intensity, but the first half is still so very bland. I will also admit that Tim Roth's performance as Dahlia's lawyer, Jeff Platzer, is absolutely fantastic throughout. When he blows off talking with Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) to go and watch a movie by himself in a nearly empty theatre, it is a thing of absolutely beauty.

The premise of the film is that a woman, Dahlia, is going through a nasty custody battle with her ex-husband, Kyle (Dougray Scott). As the battle intensifies, Dahlia seems to be having very strange nightmares and visions all involving... wait for it... wait for it........... dark water. Well, this dark water seems to have something to do with the apartment above Dahlia's own, a missing little girl, and a whole lot of very odd mischief. A great deal of the movie is very Japanese, with few scares and a much greater build-up of tension.  It is incredibly reminiscent of The Ring, both is story matters, persistent rain, and a little girl, who is almost seemingly malicious, dying in water. In the same way the movie also follows a similar climax and denouement to The Ring, solving the major plot points a good while before the movie ends. And there is a fairly dark ending here, one that is decent enough not to spoil.

It took me a while to warm to this movie. I don't think it is a great film, and I certainly don't feel that it is scary in the least bit, but it does work if you can get invested in it, something that I simply couldn't do. I don't know if it was because I couldn't relate to any of the characters except Jeff Platzer, who I thought was the only really likable character besides maybe possibly the kid and maybe Dahlia if you can relate to her. I certainly couldn't. I haven't seen the original Japanese version, and I do feel that this puts me at a disadvantage in reviewing this film. I'll check it out eventually and give a comparative review, but right now this movie seems only mediocre to me and incredibly subpar when compared to The Ring.

The imagery can sometimes be pretty good, but often does not feel much like a horror movie. I mean the dark water from the title is pretty well done and also so incredibly Japanese is style that it's kind of conventional in some ways. Also, damn it, little girls are not scary. I found myself laughing at the ridiculousness of this little girl being intimidating. Maybe it's just me, but although the second half of the movie is mostly pretty good, the ending was actually kind of painful to watch and left quite a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, I'm sorry, but I shouldn't be rolling my eyes throughout the ending, sighing, and wishing, almost hoping, it would just end without all of the stupidity. It didn't thought. It ended both painfully and so melodramatically that I wanted to scream at the movie itself to not do what I knew it was going to do.

I will say I do like the constant rain imagery throughout the film, but I liked that in The Ring too. I thought it was much more effective in that movie though. I guess altogether this movie can be seen as a ghost movie, certainly, very Japanese in style, but as a bit of a movie about the paranoid delusions of a woman under a lot of strain. The subtlety of the film was lost to me though. It seemed incredibly heavy-handed at times, and just didn't do it for me. I wish the movie was about the adventures of Tim Roth as Jeff Platzer in a ghost movie instead... but no. No such luck.

I wouldn't recommend this film to anybody. I mean, I guess if you're really hardcore into ghost stories with a Japanese twist, go ahead and watch it maybe? Although I'd almost guarantee that the Japanese version is better even though I've never seen it. So, I'm simply going to shrug and tell anybody reading this review to avoid it.

Movie Appraisal: The Nameless (Los Sin Nombre) (Els Sense Nom) (1999)

The Nameless feels like a very 1990s type of horror film. It actually at first reminded me slightly of Se7en (1995). It started out like a police investigation with an odd body showing up. It was frankly kind of disturbing. The film itself has a quality to it that makes everything feel slightly off. It's a very interesting kind of film that can make even mundane things disturbing.

I don't know exactly why this movie reminds me so much of Se7en, but it does. The plot is almost nothing like it, and most things are incredibly different, but both movies feel very similar to one another. This film is all about trying to find answers much like The Ring is. Actually this movie is like a Spanish version of a mixture between Se7en and The Ring.

The reason this movie first came onto my radar was because it was compared to a psychological horror movie I looked up recently (I couldn't say which one because I don't remember.), and I wanted to see this film. It sounded interesting.

Well, this film is not psychological horror. It is far from the realm of psychological horror. Sure, it wants you to think it's psychological horror, but all it really is is a horror film. Is it a good horror film? Well, that depends. I kind of liked it. I thought some parts were decently done. The problem is nothing in this film is memorable. There are no memorable scenes, nothing that really popped out at me. The whole build up to the ending wasn't disappointing, it just happened. And I'm not entirely certain what to think about that. I kept thinking that this movie would have some awesome payoff kind of ending that would make the whole movie worth it... but it didn't. It wasn't disappointing, as I said, it just... well, was.

There are some very strange, almost nonsensical, parts throughout the film. I'm not certain why the film keeps showing the film "tearing". I've never seen that in a film like this before. It was different, but also distracting. I liked it, but it didn't make sense as to why that was happening by the movie's end.

The way the film is shot is decent, but predictable. The whole movie is predictable, but so many things come up in the movie that are never brought up again. So many plot points seem to be forgotten simply so the ending can happen in the way it happened. I wish they had redone the ending, or just filmed a different one. I would have a distinctly different opinion about the movie is the ending wasn't so... average.

The acting is mostly good, but I can't say it's great. Listening to it in Spanish is perfectly fine, but the subtitles don't always seem to match what the characters are saying. It leads me to think that the subtitles are stylized a bit, and I'm not a huge fan of that.

So, my ultimate thoughts on this movie? It's decent. I'm not angry about it. I'm not disappointed I saw it. It is a forgettable film though, and I'll probably forget the whole thing in a little while and never think of it again. I doubt this movie is anybody's favorite film. There are many better movies in this genre of Cult-Horror... and what I mean by "Cult-Horror" is a horror movie that deals with cults, not a cult film, that is more of an underground type of film that certain types of hipsters and stoners like.

Anyway, I think there are better films out there, but this one isn't terrible. It's better than Reaper or Space Thunder Kids, and, honestly, as long as a film doesn't go out of its way to piss me off, I can't say that it should never be watched.

Movie Appraisal: The Ring (2002)

The Ring is probably the best film remake I have ever seen. Most remakes in my opinion are terrible. This one is actually quite good. I was going to review Ringu, the original Japanese movie, but I had absolutely no time to watch it and will review that one at a later date. I've seen The Ring a ton of times and found it to be a pretty easy movie to review for my last review of October (even though technically I'm doing this review a week after Halloween. This is what happens when one has a busy schedule of classes and puts all of this on his plate as well.).

Anyway, this is one of my favorite non-psychological horror films that still is very much a horror film. I love the imagery in this film. I like it better than even most psychological horror films. The haunted videotape is awesome unto itself and actually becomes quite hard to watch since you know what it is and what it supposedly does to the viewer. The film grabs you and never lets you go, and I can't usually say that about most recent, very mainstream films. The story is fantastic. The acting, with Naomi Watts leading it, is fantastic and believable. There are genuinely very creepy moments that will leave you with nightmares for years to come. I've always liked the fact that it rains throughout the entire movie. The fog is awesome as well. And the little girl, Samara coming out of the television screen is one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen in my entire life in a film.

Seriously, if you haven't seen this film, see it. It's absolutely worth it. If you have seen it, watch it again. It's a great film that should be watched as often as possible for its setting, tone, plot, acting, awesomeness, terror, et cetera. It makes most films seem awkward and annoying in comparison.

I love the pacing of this film. I have to say that. I feel that that is something that isn't said often enough about films, but pacing is a legitimate art-form in some ways, and here is one of the best examples of great pacing that I know of. Most horror films kind of need good pacing, but this one is just fantastic. It could be that the film is a bit of a mystery plot that revolves around Naomi Watts' character, Rachel, trying to find out about this videotape. I deem this film of the mystery-horror genre. I know most people call this psychological horror, but those people are stupid and should be ignored. What I've mostly reviewed in movies over these last thirty-one days has been psychological horror. This movie is entirely in the real world. It has no epic dream sequences or anything. This is one of the fines examples of mystery-horror, but not an example at all of psychological horror. Hell, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, is a very definite psychological horror film. This one is not, but that doesn't make it bad at all.

Anyway, this is an awesome film. The visuals are some of the best you'll ever see. The acting is fantastic, the plot is different and pretty awesome, and everybody should see this movie at least once in their lives.