Overview: After terrifying audiences worldwide with the blockbuster J-Horror classic Ring and its sequel, director Hideo Nakata returned to the genre for Dark Water, another highly atmospheric, and critically acclaimed, tale of the supernatural which took the common theme of the dead wet girl to new heights of suspense and drama.

Based upon on a short story by Ring author Koji Suzuki, Dark Water follows Yoshimi, a single mother struggling to win sole custody of her only child, Ikuko. When they move into a new home within a dilapidated and long-forgotten apartment complex, Yoshimi begins to experience startling visions and unexplainable sounds, calling her mental well-being into question, and endangering not only her custody of Ikuko, but perhaps their lives as well.

Beautifully shot by cinematographer Junichiro Hayashi (Ring, Pulse), and featuring an especially unnerving sound design, Dark Water successfully merges spine-tingling tension with a family’s heart-wrenching emotional struggle, creating one of the very finest and most unsettling contemporary Japanese horror films.

4K Blu-ray Verdict: As noted, after Ringu and its sequel in the late 1990s, prolific J-horror grandmaster Hideo Nakata returned to familiar ground in 2002 with this intimate and very scary family drama/ghost story/murder mystery hybrid. Like Ringu, it was remade (reasonably well) in Hollywood – an indication of the central story’s universal appeal.

While awaiting custody proceedings over her daughter, Ikuko (Rio Kanno), Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) recalls being left at kindergarten while her own parents argued about who should pick her up. These memories inform the whole premise and tenor of the film: Yoshimi is terrified of losing her daughter. So she convinces the divorce panel that she is looking for work and a new home for her and Ikuko.

Mother and daughter move into a cheap, brutalist tenement. It’s basic but serviceable. Yoshimi gets a job and soon the pair have achieved some kind of normality. But something’s not quite right. There’s a damp patch on the ceiling and it’s gradually growing. And who is that strange little girl wearing the yellow mac? As Yoshimi seeks the truth – all the while protecting her daughter and triggering her own deep-seated fears – she will uncover the tragedy of a missing child that will haunt her on an existential level.

As with Ringu, Nakata shows his mastery of the slow horror form, and is in complete control. The frame is drained of bright color and tinged with blue and grey, almost as if we’re underwater. Forget about cheap jump shocks – Nakata is all about presence, subtly introducing us to the layout of the apartment block before planting its corners with half-glimpsed human forms and shadows. Meanwhile, the subtle, eerily ambient score textures the images rather than crashing the cuts.

The two main performances are excellent, portraying an entirely believable bond between mother and daughter. Kuroki’s performance may aggravate at first – Yoshimi is all nodding subservience and hysterical nerves – but gradually we empathize. As the clouds clear on the mystery of the girl in the raincoat, so they do too on Yoshimi’s really quite rational fear of abandonment.

While you can see its influence on recent fare like The Babadook, which similarly focused as much on the mother-child dynamic as the scares, Dark Water also owes itself to films that came before. The image of the possibly supernatural, raincoated child, for example, clearly harks back to Don’t Look Now; and we even get a final act shock that matches Nicolas Roeg’s classic for sheer, lurching terror.

Dark Water is deep and foreboding; a bass thrum of a horror which keeps its creepy cards close to its chest. It is intricate and heartfelt and provides pictures that linger. It is also, crucially, an effective and moving love story about family bonds, which is key to grasping the real horror here: the horror of loss.

Special Features:
4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Optional English subtitles
Ghosts, Rings and Water - interview with director Hideo Nakata
Family Terrors - interview with author Koji Suzuki
Visualizing Horror - interview with cinematographer Junichiro Hayashi
Archive interviews with actors Hitomi Kuroki & Asami Mizukawa and theme song artist Shikao Suga
Original making-of documentary
Trailers and TV Spots
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain
Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by David Kalat and Michael Gingold