Elizabeth (Louise Salter) arrives at a convent located on a remote island. It seems her dead father made regular contributions to the church, and she wants to see where his money was going. Before long, she begins to suspect the creepy nuns may have sacrificed a friend of hers. Elizabeth then teams up with a Sherlock Holmes-obsessed nun (Venera Simmons) to unravel the truth.
Director Mariano Baino has the same philosophy as Dario Argento when it comes to atmosphere taking precedence over the plot. Given a choice between a scene making sense or looking cool, he’d pick the latter every time. I respect that. It doesn’t always make for the most coherent moviegoing experience, but I respect that. I can’t say it 100% “worked”. I can say I was always entertained. I’ll admit some of the “plot” was a tad confusing. However, I could honestly say I didn’t know where the movie was going to go next. That’s not something you can say about dozens of other horror flicks.
Dark Waters has a cool visual style reminiscent of other ‘90s horror films like Dance with the Devil, Cemetery Man, and Killer Tongue. Baino also delivers some unique nightmare/freak-out imagery. The shots of the crucified nun are atmospheric and the scene where Salter begins chowing down on a dead fish is quite memorable. The sequences where the nuns hold their unholy sabbaths in the candlelit catacombs under the church are also appropriately moody.
I will say that the final monster is awfully rubbery looking. That’s probably why he’s only briefly shown. That said, the payoff is still satisfying enough to make some of the more ambiguous passages feel justified.
This is one of those movies where you have to turn off your rational mind to unlock the mystery. Let your lizard brain take over and some of the more abstract breadcrumbs will begin to make sense. If you can groove to Dark Waters’ dream logic frequency, it will sure to be a big splash.
AKA: Dead Waters.
No comments:
Post a Comment