Dead Waters

Starring:Valeri Bassel, Pavel Sokolov, Mariya Kapnist, Venera Simmons, Louise Salter, Anna Rose Phipps
Director: Mariano Baino
Studio: York Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Dark Waters of great horror.
EXCELLENT HORROR
Brooding, "Lovecraftian" Nightmare
what are your choices?
Italian Euro-Horror film ripe for discovery

Dead Waters
Starring: Louise Salter , Venera Simmons , Mariya Kapnist , Lubov Snegur , and Alvina Skarga
Director: Mariano Baino
Manufacturer: York Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00004YZEF
Release Date: 2000-11-07

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Young Italian director Mariano Baino may hope to be the new Dario Argento, but he isn't there yet. In this cool box set that includes the cement medallion from Dark Waters, the feature, Dark Waters, is actually a weak link. Broaching the Italian Catholic subject of mysterious, demented nuns, Dark Waters tells the story of Elizabeth (Louise Salter), a sexy Londoner whose father has died and requested that she donate a portion of her inheritance to an isolated monastery in the Black Sea where her mother used to live, and where she was born. When Elizabeth visits, she becomes stranded, discovering that the nuns make blood sacrifices to appease a water demon, and her only confidant on the island, friend-turned-nun Sarah (Venera Simmons), turns out to be equally psycho. Candlelit sanctums, chanting, blind nuns, and bloody crosses liken this nunnery to a torture chamber, but the clichés ruin scary moments. Slow pacing in Dark Waters also lowers the scare factor. That said, the second disc featuring Baino's early shorts, is full of brief, eerie spectacles. "Never Ever After" is about a girl whose wish to rid herself of her body results in her beheading. "Caruncula" stars a grizzly serial killer, who is transformed into TV dinner upon encountering his match, a seemingly harmless young lady. In "Dream Car", a young man's demise is attributed to an evil red sports car. In these shorts, plots move along and gore happens faster, their ideas concise, original, and nightmarish, making the Dark Waters box set satisfying on the whole. --Trinie Dalton

Customer Reviews:

Dark Waters of great horror........2007-05-05

I love finding these off-beat low budget horror films. The acting, script and direction for this film is supereb, considering the limited budget of the film. It is done in the old style od Argento and fulchi, with creepy, craggy, rainsoaked locations, evil nuns, and a very well written diolouge between the two main female charachters throughout the film. It is tense at times and really takes you into a sinister world of lies and satanic treachery.
True the ending is somewhat weak, but if you allow the director some room considering he had no money, it all works pretty good.
A four stars for this one. I'm going to order a copy now.

EXCELLENT HORROR .......2007-03-30

It's funny but two films came out in the same time period - "Dust Devil" and "Dark Waters". Most seem to consider Dust Devil the perfect horror film of that time and while I really enjoy that film also I find Dark Waters a much better film.

To give you an idea of the story and feel mix the amazing film "The Sentinel(1977)" With Stuart Gordon's masterpiece "Dagon" as if it was directed by Argento or Fulci and you get a sense of "Dark Waters".
It has a very strong Giallo feel and look to it, VERY italian horror with the music, atmosphere and shots. The film is shot very well and has that true sense of foreboding. It is a definite ode to H.P Lovecraft and the italian horror shockers of the 70s/80s. If you like any of this stuff then Dark Waters is for you!

There are three editions to choose from. (the single disc, double disc and special edition with the amulet replica). If you are a fan of italian horror and H.P Lovecraft then this is a must buy!

Brooding, "Lovecraftian" Nightmare.......2007-01-26

From the previous reviews, it seems that one either really likes this film or really detests it. After a bit of reflection, I'll have to count myself in the first camp.

"Dark Waters" is definitely not a usual off-the-shelf, paint-by-numbers horror film. Its appeal (from my viewpoint) is more subtle and mature by far than the hack-'til-you-drop gore-fare that some use to define "horror" today. For me, the dread and horror in "Dark Waters" developed gradually as the film slowly brought the viewer to the point of realizing that he (or she) is inexorably entangled in the tentacles of an inescapable living nightmare. I found myself thinking that if H.P. Lovecraft had nightmares, and if a film crew could enter into them and capture their essence visually and psychologically, the result would not be unlike "Dark Waters."

The film certainly isn't for every taste. If you like lots of violent action, tons of gore and quick gratification, "Dark Waters" will be unsatisfying. But if you enjoy being slowly drawn into a vortex of nightmarish hopelessness in a setting very reminiscent to haunted Innsmouth (with truly crazed nuns perhaps standing in for the depraved Cult of Dagon), then I think you might give "Dark Waters" a viewing.

what are your choices?.......2007-01-22

Keeping in mind that this obscurity was made on the cheap in Russia in the early 90s, there are a lot of positives here. The director tried to make a straightforward atmospheric ode to Lovecraft in a style influenced by the Italian greats, no ironic postmodern jokey humor here to dilute things. There are too few horror films of recent vintage with that kind of lofty ambition and so I give the movie an extra star for that. Some of the other reviewers have complained that the movie is way too derivative: there's really no question that Suspiria, Inferno, and Phenomena in particular influenced the makers of this movie and there are a few obvious/deliberate visual swipes/hommages here and there, but I don't see that as a problem myself. I'd rather see work by a filmmaker perhaps overly influenced by great work than one by someone who's imitating a bunch of crap.

Several of the sequences have nicely done and memorable imagery, are well lit and shot, and overall the movie looks pretty darn good for the low budget. The look of it (lots of rain in an old remote seacoastal town populated by sinister natives) sort of made me think of Stuart Gordon's later Dagon, though the two have a very different approach in tone. The acting is surprisingly not bad: the lead, Louise Salter is pretty and talented and it's a shame that this seems to be really her only movie (and the director's as well). The problems? Well, there are many awkward transitions and moments of poor plot/factual exposition which gives the film a somewhat random cobbled together feel (although the same charge can be said of Argento or Bava or other Italian greats to be fair); some scenes particularly in the middle drag quite a bit; the whole thing should probably have been quite a bit bloodier honestly; the low budget is a problem in a few key places; and unfortunately, the director cannot resist the temptation to include some creature effects toward the end that wind up bringing the whole thing down rather than doing anything positive (Didn't anyone learn from Curse of the Demon? Many other films of course make this same mistake: see Carpenter's Mouth of Madness for another Lovecraftian style narrative from this time period that also blows it badly by showing more than it should).

Bottom line, if you are a fan of serious 70s/80s euro-horror (particularly of a supernatural bent), you should probably give this a shot and watch it (perhaps rent first then decide on a purchase). After all, despite the shortcomings, there haven't been that many films made for those with these tastes in recent years, so it's not like there's a ton of other choices waiting.

Italian Euro-Horror film ripe for discovery.......2006-11-02

Superior 2 disc limited edition set (complete with resin amulet & 48 page booklet) from NoShame films - they have done this little seen, little known gem up right. Disregard that 1 star rating and review, and I couldn't disagree more with that statement that "Dark Waters" was trying to be the new "Suspiria"? I will say it is much more in the tradition of Bava-Fulci-Argento horror and Italian horror of the 60's & 70's then horror stylings of today.

An atmospheric, dreamlike, disjointed film (in the best tradition of Italian horror) with excellent photography, settings and sound that demands multiple viewings to fully appreciate it - one must remember this was filmed in the Ukraine just after the fall of the USSR on little to no budget so the results under such conditions were/are outstanding - the director is Italian, but based out of England so the dialogue was filmed/spoken in English - this is not a dubbed or subtitled movie. Highly recommended, esp. for those horror, euro-horror fans who have grown tired of the onslaught of joke horror, slasher horror, torture/gross-out horror and Japanese remakes of recent. Buy this set while you can - limited to just 3000 produced.

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