Dark Water (2005)★★★☆☆

This is one of those movies that I feel like I should like more than I actually do. It’s got all the makings of a good scary movie! A great cast, a good composer, and an original story. But I thought it was only okay.

I’d been talking about John C. Reilly earlier today and saw that he was in this, and I hadn’t seen it since it came out (over 10 years ago now!) so figured it was a reasonable choice. I love Jennifer Connelly and Tim Roth, and I’ve been seeing Dougray Scott in a lot lately, so I figured it wouldn’t be that bad. And it wasn’t that bad or anything. The acting was definitely great, and the music was really well done. And the abandoned apartment and dilapidated complex was pretty creepy.

But the pacing was weird. This is another movie that felt too slow for its story. And the flashbacks to Dahlia’s mother were confusing and didn’t really add much to the story. I guess they were meant to add to the mystery around whether it’s all in Dahlia’s head or something else, but it didn’t quite work for me.

Overall, this was just okay, and might be worth a watch. I’ll admit I haven’t seen the 2002 original movie version, so maybe that one does it better.