The tale of two girls who were abandoned by their mothers as children. The first grew up to have a daughter of her own and fights tirelessly to ensure that she never loses her. The second perished in a tragic accident and now haunts a derelict apartment complex. When their paths cross what follows is the emotional and eerie battle of and for a mother's love. It's a horror movie that uses poignant thematic material and human drama to deliver a deeply affecting experience that stabs you in the gut with a knife of terror. Then twists the blade until it burrows a hole up into your heart and fills the wound it left behind with sadness. There's a constant sense of dread. Not out of anticipation for whatever freaky thing the ghost will do next. While the lonely specter stalking Yoshimi and Ikuko is definitely creepy, Dark Water is scary because it poses such a significant threat to the mother-and-daughter relationship at the center of it all. Watching Yoshimi fight the living and the dead to remain with the daughter she loves so much is a powerful method of ensuring the audience is invested in what's happening onscreen right down to their very core. The ending is absolutely devastating. I was left with a physical pain in my chest that made it clear my heart wasn't just broken, but annihilated. Have you ever been too sad to cry? Those already familiar with Hideo Nakata may find this to be remarkably similar to his earlier work Ringu. This could be viewed as a sort of spiritual successor with a hydrophobic spin. The use of water is excellent. Not only does it tie into the history of it's apparition in a clever way, but also allows the more nightmarish moments to have an unearthly quality. Sort of like the "Otherworld" segments in Silent Hill. Just with fluids instead of fire and brimstone. Usually when films choose to explore the effects a missing parent can have on a child, it's done where the father is the one who left or is too busy to have a real presence in their lives. Dark Water instead focuses on the departure of the matriarch and is all the more distressing as a result. A heart-rending and eldritch testimony to the necessity of motherhood. It's conclusion destroyed me, but there is a sweetness to it. Proof that horror can be just as deep as the most unreachable point in any of the world's oceans even when it's not quite as scary.