My last read in terms of a horror novel was the series of Ann Rice books on which they based the movies Interview with a Vampire and the Queen of the Damned. My latest read in this genre, Dark Water by Koji Suzuki, really caught my eye as I was perusing the horror section because I knew a movie had been created based on it. I am in no position to compare the two though because I haven’t actually seen the film.

Dark Water is actually a collection of short stories, that like the title of the book, are all related to water in some aspect. Though classified by the library, as ‘Horror’, I disagreed and found the stories focused more on the eerie side of human behaviour with a number of supernatural aspects adding to the strangeness of each story.

Each story was actually quite easy to read, and I found myself running through them at a very fast pace, probably heightened by fact I was flying out on a night flight. I think the magic in Suzuki’s book is the way that he describes very natural circumstances in a very unnatural way, with less emphasis on the traditionally ‘scary’ side and more on the ‘chilling’ one.

I’d definitely be keen on seeing the movie and working out which story was actually the basis for it.

TheKua.com Rating: 6.5 out of 10