20 Horror Movies So Good You Overlook Huge Flaws

11. Dark Water (2002) - It's Too Much Of A Ring Rerun

2002's Dark Water is an absolute Japanese horror classic, not to mention one of the most underrated horror films of this century, and the fairly dismissive reviews from some Western critics really didn't do it justice. Having said that, there is one more-than-fair point they raised: it's too similar to director Hideo Nakata's earlier J-horror classic, Ring. 

It's another single mother trying to protect her young child from a creepy female ghost, while various other elements - the tragic backstory of the ghost, the manner of her death, and the general structure of the story - do feel derivative of Ring. In fact, the short story that Dark Water was based on was written by none other than the late Koji Suzuki, who also wrote, you guessed it, the novel of Ring. 

If one were to be uncharitable, there is sometimes a sense of Nakata and Co. rehashing the formula that worked so well a few years before. But then again, not every great movie needs to reinvent the wheel. Dark Water is an excellent horror film by any reasonable standard, and it mixes affecting drama with bone-chilling scares to fantastic effect.