Peter P
Atmosphere is everything here. Beautiful in the tradition of Italian Horror Cinema, but the setting on the Crimea gives it a unique look of a lost time. A decaying monastery on a remote island, candlelit cave passages, paintings by a blind, visionsplagued artist. And the overall feel of something truly old. The pace is slow, sometimes with no dialog for long sequences. But for anyone interested in Lovecraft, Gothic or Occult Horror this is highly recommended.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
06/18/23
Full Review
CKB
This intriguing low-budget production has a lot of rough edges which the 2006 documentary of its making, Deep Into Dark Waters, helps explain. It was filmed in 1994 in Ukraine, at that point a newly liberated former Soviet satellite still heavily tainted by Soviet-era disarray, corruption and weirdness, so that director Mariano Baino and his small band of British crew and actors found themselves up against serious daily challenges. No one knew where their camera was at first and it took days to 'find' it. Somebody had sold their film stock on the black market and they had to resort to the same black market to buy more. The Ukrainian crew members would take 3-4 hour 'lunch breaks'. The Brit who was going to animate their monster was a liar and ran out, leaving them with only a rigid monster statue. And so on. Considering these challenges, the resulting film is far better than it had any right to be. Baino and his co-writer had to come up with instant rewrites to major parts of their script, and their solutions seem better than their original ideas. Their goal had been to make a 'real' horror film in response to the silly slasher junk typical of those times. Having their plans for big spectacle scenes dashed forced them to create something much more suggestive and ambiguous -- exactly what makes the best horror films work so well.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
10/30/22
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Audience Member
Dark Waters: Decades of criminal corporate negligence exposed in this workmanlike drama.
IMDB Synopsis: A corporate defense attorney takes on an environmental lawsuit against a chemical company that exposes a lengthy history of pollution.
Recommendation: Movies like this don't get a lot of attention, so watch it, if for nothing else, to give a larger voice to the staggering malfeasance the film illustrates. 8/10.
Dark Waters, the latest from Director Todd Haynes (Carol, Far From Heaven), chronicles the 20-year legal battle that arose from decades of negligence, corporate malfeasance, and impropriety by the DuPont Corporation in West Virginia, based on the book "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare" by Nathaniel Rich. The film isn't flashy. It eschews the narrative devices of contemporary exposé film The Laundromat, nor does the dramatic tension often rise to the level of boardroom drama The Report, but nonetheless, Dark Waters is superbly effective in its storytelling. By showing the legal battle, and the heartbreak and frustrations of the victims the film is supremely affecting, as told in a straightforward timeline of events.
In WWII, the Manhattan Project developed a specific chemical (PFOA) that was indestructible and used on tanks as an anti-mud coating of sorts. Fast forward and chemical companies like DuPont put PFOA to use. Renamed C8, the chemical was most well known in Teflon, but also used in waterproofing, carpeting, etc. What DuPont knew, was the that C8 was wildly harmful to human, animals, and the environment. They had lab tests, human trials, real world evidence, and other data from companies like 3M. And DuPont had been polluting C8 waste in landfills, the rivers, and into the air for decades in the Parkersburg, WV area for decades.
A Parkersburg farmer, Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp) brought the case to corporate defense attorney Robert Bilott (a fantastic Mark Ruffalo) due to the mutual connection of Bilott's grandmother. What starts as a favor quickly spirals into a near-obsession for Bilott as he uncovers more and more skeletons in DuPont's closet related to C8. Bilott exposes the truth behind C8's health effects including cancer, birth defects, and death, and how DuPont had been knowingly polluting C8 waste into the local area with no regard to health and human safety… because the Teflon line made a billion dollars a year. A true case of corporate greed and cover up, the story doesn't stop when DuPont settles with the now-terminal Tennants.
Where Dark Waters really succeeds is in the David vs. Goliath battle that takes place after. It's one lawyer, one obsession, one community, fighting against the full might of an American Institution. Bilott puts everything on the line for these folks—his job, his marriage, even his health—to shine a light on Dupont. And while the decades-long legal battle for Bilott and his class-action plaintiffs ultimately end in financial success, but there's a bitter taste leftover. How many stories are left untold? How much corporate malfeasance goes unchecked? If anything, Dark Waters is a cautionary tale.
MVP: This is clearly a Mark Ruffalo vehicle, but I was really impressed with Anne Hathaway‘s scenes. I think she's the sneaky MVP. But it's nice to see Ruffalo as an everyman lawyer, not the Hulk.
Highlights: A movie that's this workmanlike doesn't have a lot of traditional highlights, but Ruffalo and Hathaway's performances stand out. William Jackson Harper playing the anti-Chidi is also great.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Very cool, very Lovecraftian. It's not seen or talked about much, which is unfortunate, because it's a quality love-letter. Great ending!
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
10/18/18
Full Review
Audience Member
it's a good movie, and it's very crazy
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/07/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Stylish, but ultimately lacking, this Eastern European horror film features a lot of mean nuns, creepy townsfolk, and, well, water. It looks nice, and I think a lot of good elements went into the film, which I can only imagine was done on the cheap. Perhaps it needed to be shorter. Perhaps it needed more story. I'm not sure. But the random murderous nun attacks became almost laughable, and nobody seemed especially interested in doing anything, be it evil or good. OK, but not great.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
Full Review
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