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Nual's mother
died when Nual was just a baby and it is
said that Nual's mother, Chan, was raped and drowned
in the cursed river by the village. Now, the village is
a haven for thieves and crooks and the ghost of Chan is
doing the best she can to kill them off. Meanwhile,
Nual meets a handsome young man named Sak who she
quickly falls in love with, but this makes her friend
Sapin very upset. Drama breaks out between the two
friends and soon the village is completely absorbed by
intrigues, vengeful spirits and crimes.
What do you do when you've made a really lousy horror
flick and spent a fair amount of money on it? Simple!
You simply steal the title from a successful Japanese
horror flick that everybody loved. Unfortunately for
Right Beyond Entertainment (a Thai company known for
releasing crappy movies), the Thai audience wasn't
fooled and the movie bombed at the box office (it only
survived a week before the cinemas stopped playing it).
After just having seen the brilliant horror movie "Exte",
Dark Water, which has a somewhat similar concept where
long black hair is the main villain, feels like quite
the dud. The special effects are far from as stunning
(they look like they were made in Photoshop), the story
is less than intriguing and the movie overall feels cheap
(even though it probably wasn't).
Before I go on with my negative review, I have to say
that I actually did learn a couple of things from this
terrible horror movie;
1. When you spot a ghost on the shore, make sure to
jump in the water - and even more so if you're in a boat.
2. Hair moves like a tentacle when under water.
3. Exorcists borrow demons from the original Doom game
and use them as pets.
4. Women are unable to do anything but to cry and
cause drama and jealousy.
5. Monks are easily frightened.
6. Small towns in Thailand are extremely violent.
I think that's it. So let's get on with the review shall
we? The movie revolves around Nual whose mother, Chan,
died when she was only a baby. Chan has now become a
powerful ghost and likes to kill people by splashing
water over them or drown them with her ridiculously
long hair. Despite all of this, Nual still visits her
shrine every day to pay respect to her dead mother and
even though she has no memory of her - she still misses
her. She soon meets a young man named Sak who she quickly
falls in love with. This makes her best friend, Sapin,
very jealous so Sapin decides to team up with a bunch
of the local crooks to stop them from marrying each other.
Once again we get a horror movie which is all drama and
no horror. The horror really is just a weak subplot of
the movie. Dark Water is obviously trying to rip off
the successful Thai horror flick "Nang Nak" but is
unsuccessful at doing so as the characters are flat
and the acting is terrible. I also hated how it
portrayed women as the weaker sex - I think we got
to hear random men saying "you're just a woman, what
can you do?" more than five times throughout this
movie. It's strange how Thailand seems to be divided
into two very different cultures. One which is very
modern and one which is stuck in the middle of the
20th century - if that.
The plot is excruciatingly dull and repetitive and it
all seemed like a rush job to me. The script is weak
and it's obvious that this didn't have a budget as
big as most other Thai horror flicks as it looked
and felt like a DTV movie. So when I say that this
probably cost a decent amount of money to make,
I really mean in comparison to other Right Beyond
titles as they usually only do release straight to
video movies (that are painfully bad).
I don't have a whole lot good to say about this movie
as you've probably noticed. It's got a thin story and
I've never been very frightened of ghosts that have a
personality and... errr... a flying head (what's up
with all these flying head ghosts?). Dark Water only
proves my theory that not everyone can make a movie
about killer hair good - on the contrary, very few
actually can. This movie belongs deep down at the
bottom of the ocean - so maybe that's what the title
is trying to describe.
An impalement, an axe in the head and very little more.
Mediocre fiddle music and basic suspense music.
Poor "Nang Nak" rip-off with a thin story and some
very un-frightening ghosts. I've never been a big fan
of these country-side Thai horror flicks actually as
I don't know much about this kind of culture, but
it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from,
you'll still hate this movie so don't waste your time.
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