Dahlia Williams (Connelly)is a recently seperated Mum fighting her ex husband (Scott)for the custody of her daughter Ceci. Wanting to provide her daughter with the loving life that she herself was denied, Dahlia is desperate to set up a new life and prove herself as a stable loving mother. Dahlia searches for a new place for her and her daughter to live and despite it’s run down appearance, a dank unit on Roosevelt Island provides a glimmer of hope for the troubled Mother.
However Dahlia soon finds herself feeling more unsettled and isolated as she and her daughter begin to feel another prescence in the unit and the appearance of a leak on the unit’s roof dripping ominous dark water.
Fuelled by fears of losing custody of her daughter, Dahlia rapidily feels that she is losing control as her past begins to mould with the recent disturbing history of a former resident, an abondoned child who is now haunting the unit.

Dark Water is meant to be an eerie, scary, pyschological thriller. What it is is dull, predictable and unappealling. French Director Walter Salles (Motorcycle Diaries) concentrates too heavily on the film’s characters and forgets to give us the chills that the movie’s genre promises. Most of the actors are in good form here but despite their efforts most of the characters are just not likeable, in fact they are as dreary and miserable as the rain soaked locations they habitate in. Connelly works incredibly hard as the troubled Dahlia, the problem is that she is a mess at the start and very little changes in her along the way. Postlethwaite’s Veeck is an insulting and absurdly obvious attempt to unsettle us - a waste of both his and our time. Only Roth’s lawyer, Jeff Platzer gives us any real reason to care.

Throw this DVD in with your weekly package but save it to last to watch, that way if you dont get around to watching it there is no real loss.

THE EXTRAS

There is quite an extensive set of extras here involving deleted scenes and featurettes.
Beneath the Surface A set of 5 featurettes where the director, cast and production crew discuss the production of the film. Ironically they talk about their desire to avoid the horror cliches but they have seemed to managed to keep the worst ones and forgotten the most important one - scares!
Sound of Terror The sound crew and editors talk about their involvement in creating the sound effects for the film
Deleted Scenes 2 short deleted scenes are here and it is pretty obvious why they are not in the film.
Extraordinary Ensemble This featyrette is just over 25 minutes long and features a section dedicated to the major cast members and crew (12 all up)This is the usual gush fest as each person talks up someone else’s involvement. i wonder when these interviews are recorded wether the contributors have seen the final product yet or not.

Analysing Dark Water Scenes 3 scenes are presented here and broken down for us via commentary from the production crew, of most interest is the interactive bathroom sequence from the film’s climax. Here sound rerecordist Scott Milan offers an interesting commentary but also we are given 6 isolated soundtracks to watch the scene in to hear the various sound layers that it took to create the soundtrack for the scene. Full marks for this one!
Alternate Sequence An alternate edit to Dahlia’s dream where she sees the film’s main haunting image - a wall streaming with dark water. What is disturbing about this is that the Director reveals that they created a scene for this shot., with that attitude it’s no wonder the rest is so uninvolving.

CONCLUSION

Another Hollywood remake of a Japanese horror film reaches us on DVD (because it reached next to no one at the cinemas). Jennifer Connelly stars in this atmospheric creepy story which sees the spirit of an abondoned child haunt a protective single mum. Sound Familiar?