Dark Waters (1993)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Mariano Baino

Writers:

Mariano Baino (writer)
Andy Bark (writer)

Release Date:

1993 (Russia)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Sometimes, evil lurks where you least expect it.

Plot:

A girl travels to an island, after the death of her father, to find out why the father funded a monestary on the island.

Plot Keywords:

Blood | Catholic Priest | Disturbing | Evil Nun | Blasphemy

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Louise Salter	...	Elizabeth
Venera Simmons	...	Sarah
Mariya Kapnist	...	Mother Superior (as Maria Kapnist)
Lubov Snegur	...	Mother Superior's Assistant
Alvina Skarga	...	Old Blind Woman
Valeri Bassel	...	Fisherman (as Valeriy Bassel)
Pavel Sokolov	...	Boat Owner
Anna Rose Phipps	...	Theresa
Tanya Dobrovolskaya	...	Elizabeth as a Child
Valeriy Kopaev	...	Priest
Ludmila Marufova	...	Nun
Kristina Spivak	...	Sarah as a Child
Nadezhda Trimasova	...	Crucified Nun

Also Known As:

Dead Waters (USA) (video title)

Runtime:

USA:94 min

Country:

Russia | Italy | UK

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

USA:R | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Crimea, Ukraine

Movie Connections:

Referenced in In the Belly of the Beast (2001)

1970's style film redone in the 1990's is a great little lost gem

I stumbled upon this film completely by accident. I had ordered the Japanese film Dark Water and was sent this instead. The retailer told me to keep the film in order to make up for their error. It was a weird thing to have happen, and I figured it must be some cosmic sign, so I sat down to watch it having zero idea what it was about.

The plot of this film has a young woman going to a desolate monastery/nunnery in order to find out why her recently deceased father had been supporting it for years. Once there things are far from "normal" and there are many hidden dark secrets, not all of them are particularly healthy for our heroine.

This film really knocked my socks off. This is a movie that reminded me of many of the Euro-horrors of the 1970's and early 1980's. You have weird cults, young women, murder, mayhem and monsters. There is a weird tension that comes from everything being ever so slightly off center. You can't help but feel uneasy since you don't know how weird things are going to get nor do you know who is going to end up dead.

(SPOILER AHEAD) The only real problem is that even though the movie creates a very real claustrophobic world of religious oppression, with real characters, the film completely falls down in the last minutes when we see the "demon" that has been lurking around, at that point things go right into the toilet. How do I say this? Its worse than a man in a suit. it simply a rubber nightmare that almost completely ruins everything that has gone before. Simply put its on the list of really bad monster costumes. (Think about what happened at the end of the Conan the Destroyer)

If you can get past the bad monster and just take the movie for what its trying to do, then you'll enjoy the movie, if you need a perfection you'll love it up to a point and hate the ending.