Casting an eye over Hideo Nakata‘s filmography, it could be argued that he has a bit of a thing for ghost girls and water. Not only did he direct the iconic Japanese horror Ringu and its sequel Ring 2, in 2002 he gave us the arguably more nuanced story of Dark Water (aka Honogurai Mizu no Soko Kara – From the Depths of the Dark Water).
Dark Water is the tale of Yoshimi Matsubara (Hitomi Kuroki), newly divorced, who has gained custody of her six year old daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno) despite her ex-husband’s best efforts to paint her as unreliable and possibly mentally unstable. Finding work as a proofreader in a small publishing company the pair move into a run down apartment block where Yoshimi discovers that there’s a leak in the ceiling that gets steadily worse and worse.
READ MORE: The Comedy Man (1964) – Blu-ray Review
That’s annoying enough, but when you add in strange glimpses of a little girl in a yellow raincoat, and a red bag that just keeps showing up around the apartment complex no matter how many times she throws it away, it rapidly becomes clear that everything is not well in their new home. What follows is a slow escalation, as minor inconveniences and odd events soon grow to threats to body, mind and soul for both Yoshimi and her daughter.
Dark Water remains a somewhat overlooked addition in the J-Horror genre, drowning in the shadow of its older sibling Ringu and its terrifying protagonist, but this is a film that deserves to stand on its own as a testament to Hideo Nakata’s directorial skill. The man turns a water stain on a ceiling into a harbinger of terror, the sound of dripping water into the tolling of a funeral bell. It’s a shame that the film chooses not to lean into the angle of suggesting our lead character is, perhaps, not a reliable narrator, setting aside even the slightest suggestion that this is anything but ghosts doing ghost things within the first few minutes of our characters arriving at their potential new home.
Originally released by Arrow Video in 2016, this new version does look pretty good in the outside shots, which are crisp and clean. The same can’t be said for the interior shots, which sometimes still look muddy and soft with what feels like not a lot of improvement from the previous release. It’s not terrible by any stretch, but nor is it a massive step up from the now eight year old Blu-ray release. There are no details of where this new release came from, no indication that it’s a new restoration from the original film or some some newly discovered elements. All we get is a splash screen stating that it is the “2023 4K Digitally Restored Version”. A polite way of saying this is just another AI-upscaled release?
There’s nothing in the way of new special features on the disc either; all the interviews and the single behind-the-scenes featurette were available on the 2016 release. There’s a collector’s booklet, but that’s it. Presumably Arrow believed there was little new content to be gleaned from re-interviewing the cast and crew, but it makes this a poor value proposition for anyone who owns the original release. One oddity is a claim on the Arrow website that there is “original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain” but all the promo images show exactly the same art as the 2016 release.
READ MORE: Green Room (2016) – Blu-ray Review
Dark Water is a great film, but this release feels lazy by Arrow’s usual standards, and their standards do seem to have been slipping in the last couple of years. With poor releases, and various replacement disc programs for defective releases, Arrow is in danger of becoming an also-ran in the battle of the boutique labels, put to shame by offerings from labels such as Severin, Vinegar Syndrome and Kino Lorber. There is really little reason to pick this version of the film up, even if you’re an avid UHD collector. Stick with the cheaper Blu-ray and DVD offering.
Dark Water is out on Limited Edition 4K UHD on 18th March from Arrow Video.
