[1] It stars Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi, Asami Mizukawa, Fumiyo Kohinata, Yu Tokui, Isao Yatsu and Shigemitsu Ogi.

The plot follows a divorced mother who moves into a rundown apartment with her daughter, and experiences supernatural occurrences including a mysterious water leak from the floor above.

She rents a run-down apartment, enrolls her daughter Ikuko in a nearby kindergarten, and gets a job as a proofreader in a small publishing company.

Yoshimi heads to the building roof and notices that the water tank was last opened and inspected over a year ago, shortly before Mitsuko was last seen.

10 years later, Ikuko, now a high schooler, revisits the now-abandoned block and notices that her old apartment looks oddly clean and lived-in.

[5] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, writing that "The movie's denouement delivers not just a flash of fear but a strange, sweet charge of pathos - and the combination adds up to the most disturbing spell in the cinema I've had in a very long time".

Club recommended the film for horror fans, writing that "The J-horror boom of the '90s and early '00s produced some extremely creepy ghost stories, and Dark Water ... is one of the creepiest, and saddest, of them all.

"[8] Thomas Spurlin of DVD Talk gave the film 3.5 out of 5 stars, writing that it "doesn't pack as much of a suspenseful punch as other entries in the J-Horror subgenre, but the heaviness of its supernatural moisture-soaked atmosphere and the melancholy angle of its parental theatrics fill that void".

[9] Nicholas Rucka of Midnight Eye called the film "a simply passable horror viewing experience", criticizing its "weak story resolve and mediocre characterization" but writing that it "is worth watching for a good chill.