Very much of the ghost story genre rather than horror, Dark Water offers the viewer a melancholy and inconclusive closure. A mother coming to terms with her own unhappy childhood, and struggling to give her own daughter something better, confronts the ghost of an unhappy girl. What is impressive about this film is the director's determination to keep the story firmly rooted in the domestic and mundane world. Rather than big money thrills and violence, the story unsettles the viewer over ninety minutes, providing its coup de grace in a heart-breaking and puzzling conclusion. A cult classic.