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So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 52 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
14 Iffy for 14+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    In a movie with more subtext than "Rosemary's Baby," nearly everyone, including Tim Roth as Dahlia's lawyer, harbors secrets. Salles unleashes a torrent of suspense for one purpose: to plumb the violence of the mind. Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Most important, I cared about the Jennifer Connelly character; she is not a horror heroine, but an actress playing a mother faced with horror. There is a difference, and because of that difference, Dark Water works. Read full review

  • 70
    Los Angeles Times | Kevin Crust

    Brazilian Walter Salles, who previously directed the Oscar-nominated films "Central Station" and "The Motorcycle Diaries," guides this stylish remake through treacherous territory to create a distressing, subtly suspenseful film full of emotional resonance. Read full review

  • 67
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    A shudder-by-numbers pseudo-J-horror gothic, full of supernatural stunts you feel as if you've seen before the movie even gets to them. Read full review

  • 63
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    Dark Water has more substance and a more interesting look than many horror films, but the familiar elements of the story disappoint. Read full review

  • 60
    Washington Post | Michael O'Sullivan

    There's something that never quite works about the film. Read full review

  • 60
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    With his stirring visual sense very much intact here, Salles sets the creepy mood eloquently, but the picture -- ultimately fails to reward all the little shivers with any satisfying jolts. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    If only the explanation and resolution of the action were more compelling, Dark Water might have been a thriller of the first order. Read full review

  • 50
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    Well-crafted but thoroughly unsuspenseful. Read full review

  • 30
    The New York Times | Manohla Dargis

    Wildly overproduced and filled with fussy flourishes that make even a derelict hallway look like a million bucks, Dark Water fails to rustle up either meaning or meaningful scares. Read full review

View more reviews for Dark Water on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 14+ This scary movie is too creepy for little kids.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that the film features frightening scenes in which a young mother and her six-year-old daughter are haunted by a seeming ghost. The mother is also disturbed by flashbacks to a troubled past (her alcoholic mother tells her she "hates" her) and a custody battle with her estranged husband. The movie includes some language, tense family scenes, and jump scenes.
  • Families can talk about the tensions between mother and daughter, in part caused by the mother's past (indicated by nightmares and flashbacks). How does the daughter's "imaginary friend" worry her mother? How does the antagonism between mother and father exacerbate their daughter's fears of abandonment, loss, and retribution? How does the external world (specifically, the apartment) serve as metaphor for mother and daughter's internal states?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Parents argue, mother leaves her child at school.
What to watch for
  • violence false3 Violence: Implied violence (including drowning), and some scary, tense scenes.
  • sex false0 Sex: Not an issue
  • language false3 Language: Some strong language.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: An alcoholic mother appears in unnerving flashbacks; a character takes pills for migraine headaches.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

Dark Water Movie Ratings + Reviews

Fans say

So-so 359 fan reviews

Critics say

So-so See all critic reviews

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