A young woman named Elizabeth (Louise Salter) arrives at an island convent during a heavy rainstorm.

In lieu of a past friend of Elizabeth's, she is instead met by an innocent-seeming novice named Sarah, who will be her guide.

Elizabeth, who has gotten lost, finds a pit-like room where a blind painter has covered the walls and canvases with enigmatic images.

She wears a necklace made of the central fragment of the shattered amulet, and her eyes, covered in cataracts, now resemble those of the blind Mother Superior.

The film was originally based on a short story by Andy Bark, inspired by a childhood visit to Staithes in North Yorkshire.

The system there created many problems, but provided spectacular yet cheap sets and locations that would have been impossible to get in the UK.

In the early days, when finance was being sought by Bark and Mariano, a coup attempt that saw tanks on the streets of Moscow could not have helped matters.

There was even another coup at the end of filming when Mariano, in Moscow for the dubbing, was awoken by gun fire.

[4] Robert Firsching from Allmovie offered the film similar praise, writing, "the most exciting genre debut of the decade, Dark Waters is a stylish, frightening occult film with the Lovecraftian overtones of Lucio Fulci and the visual flair of Dario Argento, pointing to its creator, Mariano Baino, as perhaps the next great Italian horror director.