I’m a sucker for a good atmospheric Lovecraftian horror film, and I’m even more thrilled when it happens to be an Italian horror film, because then you know it’s going to be overflowing with unique style and excess. Filmed in the Ukraine, director Mariano Baino’s “DARK WATERS” is a stellar example of the nightmarish gem that can result when Lovecraft and Italian horror are fused as one. Just like in Lucio Fulci’s masterpiece “THE BEYOND”, those grandiose and gory gross out death scenes are on full display, and the film contains characters whose eyes have gone white from being blinded after witnessing the threatening evil presence in all of its supernatural glory. There’s even a little bit of Dario Argento’s “SUSPIRIA” thrown in, with an unsuspecting main character arriving to stay at an architecture that is ruled by a threatening, all female, presence and a couple other moments characteristic of “SUSPIRIA, that fans will no doubt notice. As far as I could observe, the H.P. Lovecraft influence is mostly “THE CALL OF CTHULHU” with an ending climax that shares a resemblance to a plot device from “THE DUNWICH HORROR”. I didn’t notice the resemblance to “THE DUNWICH HORROR” the first time I viewed this film, but if you think about it, you’ll see it. I don’t want to give it away, so I’ll hint at it. It involves 2 offspring from some otherworldly creature, with one resembling the parent more than the other!
Starting out strong with style and mysticism, the first part of the movie is presented in a dialogue-free fashion, amongst a sea side monastery, dark threatening waters, creepy religious imagery, and candle lit subterranean caverns. In fact, the beginning of the film happens to be the only part of the story that consists of an attack from actual dark waters, with the film’s monster not even coming from the sea, which is opposite of what I was led to believe given the movie’s title. Not a big deal at all though, because just like a movie called "TROLL 2" that has no Trolls in it, this movie is still great and is deserving of a new found popularity. That way, Mariano Baino can inflict many more films on us like he said he would do in the director’s introduction to the film (the release from No Shame).
