Dark Water

Suffused with a haunting mood of melancholy, Nakata Hideo’s J-horror classic Dark Water examines recurrent cycles of familial and institutional negligence.

Its cleverness relies on transferring our concern from the supernatural events emanating from one lost child to the natural fear of a mother losing her own child to the other world.

It's flawed, but you should see Dark Water, a decent little chiller that brings a whole new meaning to rising damp.

About as frightening as a soggy diaper.

a ghost story of maternity and madness that is, beyond all its dripping atmosphere and uncanny creepiness, awash with moving waves of melancholy and loss

...the real horror in Dark Water has nothing to do with the ghost, and everything to do with losing one’s own parent or child.

It checks all the boxes in my opinion.

Benefits from having an undercurrent of sadness, which makes it feel quite similar to the ghost stories in Kwaidan.

He [Nakata] wants us to absorb, to feel a location, and to understand the plight of the characters before he goes any further.