This movie is amazing. It very much carries over the visual style of Hideo Nakata from "Ring", but with a more polished feel.

Directing is excellent, acting is superb (especially the little girl). The visuals are fantastic and really set the eerie, dour and depressed tone for the movie. The sound is also very impressive, especially when experienced through a good 5.1 system.

As for the story, it really is brilliant. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time and is completely enthralling.

It's the ending that sealed it for me though. Although the last 5 mins seem tacked on as an afterthought, the 10 mins preceeding it included some of the most exciting, heart-pounding and absolutely heart-breaking cinema I have seen for a long time.

I have never watched a movie that made me cry like a little girl... well, not since the age of about 5. But this managed it.

I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.

Word of mouth at this point is mixed, some say it's scary others disagree. Those that disagree need to swallow their distaste of the commercial success of The Ring, and rethink their opinions.

Similar to how a lot of horror directors retread effective (and scary) themes, knowing they have yet to exhaust the well of interesting allegory and scope of a single idea, Nakata is using his Ringu tactics to scare. Some have considered this unoriginal, but by all means Nakata should continue using his proven techniques to terrify.

Dark Water is at its heart a ghost story, and ghost stories carry their share of regressive themes and morals, but we all know that there is always a wrong to be righted, and this trope is so common in the modern ghost story, there is nothing to do but allow the actual TELLING of these theme to scare us. In other words, how well does the director operate within modern conventions. This film is a prime example of Nakata operating within conventions, as well as maintaining similar themes (water, neglected/mistreated children) from Ringu.

But the real question these reviewers should be asking themselves is "Does this movie scare?" And it does. As I sit in the dark watching this film, I want our heroine to turn every corner, to FIND those horrible lurking things that wait in the corners of her decaying apartment, and the room above...

There are detractions, some of the characters seem introduced into the plot simply to move the story along, when they themselves have no more than a one-dimensional background. Granted, one can't hope for the impossible fully realized character at every turn, but there were short-cuts taken. And so I remove one star from my review.

But this film is definitely a good buy. Look for Benicio Del Toro in the US remake, set to be produced by Miramax. But don't expect the US version to capture what Nakata does, a horror movie director who works so well within his means that every aspiring filmmaker must take note.