Available
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Search of Miami | Review
by Crites
I'm
a sucker for anything Lovecraftian, or even
anything vaguely cthonic. Arcane books and
carvings pointing toward eldritch gods guarded
by half-castes spawned by lost races...
it's a rich and fertile field, and director
Mario Baino plumbs these depths and more
in DARK WATERS.
Apocalyptic prophecies, shattered
icons, animal skulls, and a beautifully
desolate island ghost town setting open
up DARK WATERS on a promising note of enigmatic
atmosphere. The cliffside religious ritual,
staged by nuns overlooking the waves with
tall crucifixes, only adds to the island's
air of mystery. The dark and stormy night
to come does the same, bringing with it
a priest's furtive examination of an ancient
manuscript written in an unknown tongue.
Suddenly floodwaters come washing through
the chapel, tearing down the cross and submerging
the priest, who within seconds has the life
torn from him by some unseen force.
The next morning a lone nun
hides out along the rocky cliffside, clutching
a circular iconic plaque. As she moves to
a peak overlooking the island's craggy shoals,
another unseen force approaches her from
behind with dizzying speed, knocking her
from her perch so that she and the amulet
shatter on the rocks below. Later the nuns
collect the remants of the plaque, placing
each piece in a separate reliquary and hiding
them about their grotto-like convent.
Twenty years later, beautiful
young Elizabeth (Louise Salter), severely
out of place among the coachload of inbred
villagers in which she's riding, travels
toward the abbey, summoned from London by
a letter from her friend Theresa (Anna Rose
Phipps). Studying at the convent Theresa
is less than pleased with her surroundings,
and as her friend makes her way past a fiery
midnight procession Theresa is exploring
the candle-lighted recesses of the convent's
nethermost regions. Spying her sisters absorbed
in mid-flagellation Theresa creeps down
to retrieve one of the pieces of the amulet,
only to be viciously stabbed to death by
an unseen assailant. Her cries echo throughout
the caves along with the sounds of the flagellants'
whips, but her body is left unattended to
bleed down a waterfall that washes over
the life-size crucifix where it came to
land twenty years ago.
Reaching the last mainland
port in the middle of a rainy night, Elizabeth
attempts to buy passage to the island convent.
The only boat she can find is piloted by
a creepy old sea captain with a morbid disposition
and his geek of a deckhand, a subhuman who
perches on deck eating raw fish guts as
a gruesome scarecrow who "keeps the
whores and pigs away." Arriving upon
the island Elizabeth is greeted by a cloaked
young member of the mysterious order, Sarah
(Venera Simmons), and quickly reveals that
her mother was from the island but died
giving birth to her. Not long afterward
Elizabeth is taken before the Mother Superior,
a blind old crone who speaks through a younger
nun. Elizabeth explains that she's on the
island as a result of her father's death,
and as the inheritor of his estate she's
following up on his commitment of regular
payments made to the convent over the past
twenty years. As the matter of the donations
was a rather secretive and mysterious one,
Elizabeth wants to know why they should
be continued. Told that she will understand
everything "in time," Elizabeth
is offered the use of the convent's grounds
and library for study in the meantime. She's
also told that her friend Theresa left for
London two days before...
In the library the next day
Elizabeth comes across a book filled with
arcane symbols accompanying a grotesque
illustration of a deformed creature bearing
animal, human, and reptilian characteristics.
Other literature speaks of "The Beast"
in Biblical terms. The movement of strange
lights distracts Elizabeth from her research,
and creeping through the abbey's fissure-like
passages she watches and follows another
one of the nuns' processions, this one bearing
a shrouded body. Quickly getting lost among
the maze of rocky corridors Elizabeth comes
across a cavern filled with bizarre religious
paintings, including one depicting Theresa's
murder. The artist is a blind hermit-like
creature, but as he approaches her Elizabeth
is pulled from his pit by Sarah. Elizabeth
shares her feelings that Theresa has been
murdered by the nuns, and Sarah promises
to help her get to the bottom of the mystery.
Later, as she studies other paintings shown
to her by Sarah, Elizabeth is attacked from
behind by one of the sisters with a chain
garrote. She manages to push her attacker
out of a cliffside doorway just as Sarah
returns to comfort her, and the two share
a scene of bonding as they talk of childhood
and destiny.
Elizabeth's dreams, which
have had an increasingly nightmarish quality
since her arrival at the convent, grow ever
stranger. One night an infant's sobbing
leads her through dark passages toward a
pair of prepubescent acolytes standing in
the presence of a truly gruesome crucified
nun, whose bloody-mawed screams awaken Elizabeth
in terror.
Walking the island's rocky
beaches the next day in the hopes of finding
a way off the island, Elizabeth comes across
a blind old woman embroidering the image
of the Beast seen in paintings and on the
amulet earlier. From the island's dockmaster/mortician
Elizabeth also retrieves a letter to her
from Theresa, warning her to stay away from
the island as her father had wished her
to, and reporting that the nuns are attempting
to restore the shattered amulet. Walking
back to the convent Elizabeth is suddenly
overcome by a sudden urge to eat raw one
of the countless dead fish washed up along
the island's shores, and as she does so
images of a bloody-mouthed little girl holding
a small animal flicker across her mind.
Regaining her senses Elizabeth vomits and
rushes back to her room, only to be plagued
by even bloodier nightmares.
Later Elizabeth returns to
the blind seamstress' shack, where she finds
photographs indicating that her mother didn't
die giving during childbirth at all. As
the old woman speaks of Elizabeth's family
in riddles, one of the nuns storms up with
a flaming crucifix and hurls it into the
cabin, setting it and the old woman ablaze.
The flaming crone runs down the shore and
dives into the ocean, crawling out a hideously
burned and delirious wreck who can only
scream in pain and call out to someone called
Ninotchka.
Now in even greater fear for
her life, Elizabeth hides from the nuns
by slinking through the convent's hidden
passages until she comes to the chamber
holding the old crucifix. There, peering
over Christ's shoulder, is the lost central
portion of the amulet bearing the face of
the Beast. As Elizabeth retrieves this the
artist and Mother Superior both suddenly
become agitated, and does the rattling of
the sealed door from behind which strange
sounds have been emanating throughout the
picture. Instantly the door bursts open,
the attending nuns screaming in terror at
what lies beyond.
Still wandering the halls
Elizabeth is again attacked by one of the
nuns, this one bearing a wickedly curved
blade. After a bloody fight Elizabeth manages
to smash the nun's head in against the floorboards,
then wanders past the nuns' broken bodies
to enter the mysterious chamber. Sarah waits
for her there, with a new look and more
than a single revelation about her past.
These of course involve the Beast, who makes
its appearance with a blood sacrifice and
the reconfiguration of the amulet. And it
all works out in a way none of the characters
could have quite expected...
Although not entirely unexpected
by some members of the audience, I'm sure.
There wasn't quite as much monster mayhem
here as I was hoping for, though the constant
aura of mystery and murder throughout goes
far toward compensating for this factor.
As does the impressively creepy atmosphere
imparted by the tainted religious order
and their vast subterranean catacomb of
a convent. The bizarre rituals, unidentifiable
accents, mysterious paintings, dripping
statuary, shadowed grottoes, secret passageways,
religious iconography, and the constant
play of firelight and shadow throughout
the primitive, almost atavistic setting
of the convent's caverns all contribute
massively to the film's fine stylized look
and associated ambiance, which is admirably
captured by cinematography utilizing the
scenery of locations in Odessa, Kiev, The
Crimea, Rome, and Moscow to concentrate
on the haunting, moody themes building toward
the climax. Said climax, as mentioned above,
could have been somewhat more grand and
exciting, but as all of the film's threads
are tied together in an ending befitting
of the Lovecraftian style of mythos it's
difficult to complain. (A most appropriate
gothic soundtrack by Igor Clark further
serves to accentuate the air of mystery
pervading the film.)
The quality is that of a good
VHS dub, as sharp and free of distortion
as any cult video you'll be likely to rent,
and in fact this is one of Video Search
of Miami's better reproductions. (Each transfer
is rated as to print quality, with DARK
WATERS earning an A.) Video Search of Miami
is a duplication service (all films in their
library can be dubbed in either VHS or DVD
format), so is more of an aid to those seeking
out the strange and bizarre in the immense
world of cult/import/obscure video than
a resource for the avid collector of new
reissues, but for those who just have to
have the original VSoM's sibling company,
Oasis Video Miami (www.oasisvideomiami.com),
can supply equally strange and sought-after
viewing in the more collectible pre-recorded
format.
#13523: $25.00 + $4.00 shipping
from Video
Search of Miami, P.O. Box 16-1917, Miami,
FL, 33116
