Why was the ghost girl (Natasha) from Dark Water so evil and cruel?

Look, I know it's just a movie, but.....

What the hell was WRONG with her? You want a loving mommy, so you'll destroy other people's lives just because you're miserable?

She can go burn in Hell for all I care.

I'm not sure why you'd expect a fictional ghost to behave in reasonable ways. That's often the idea of a ghost: that it's just pure rage/want/whatever that is no longer human but single-minded in its desire for revenge, lashing out at anyone whether it makes sense or not.

Ghost stories are not about actual human beings, they're about manifesting difficult feelings like anger and guilt.

Sounds like the type of ghost I could relate to.

Do you have her number?

Natasha? That's the US remake, right? I don't remember much from it, but at least in the Japanese original she's a small child, and children are often very selfish.

__________________

Again, I know it's a movie, but children know right from wrong. Natasha was so cold-blooded, vicious and calculated in her ways that it's just like what a demonic spiritual entity would do. Children are often very selfish, but most don't think about killing people to get what they want. Natasha is a sociopathic monster who deserved to be punished severely for what she did.

Evil ass harpie. I don't care what she experienced in life, I don't care if her mother left her, I don't care if she's in pain, it's no license to hurt others. She had free will and could've chosen differently. That Natasha bitch had choices other than destroying other people. She should burn in Hell for eternity.

I actually live in hell. It ain't too bad. The WiFi is surprisingly good.

She's not a child, she's a ghost. Ghosts are often depicted as if they were feelings incarnate, and are therefore about the danger of prioritizing one emotion or feeling at the expense of all others, and at the expense of reason itself. That's the whole idea.

The fact that it was unreasonable to you is a feature, not a bug.

Genuinely sounds like you're working through some stuff here, friend. Take it easy.

Did she have free will, though? A ghost in Japanese mythology is essentially a representation of a person's strongest emotions at the time of death, like rage and fear. Everything else gets stripped away. I don't think they are to be treated as regular humans.

__________________
How am I supposed to find someone willing to go into that musty old claptrap?

Yeah, there's zero reason to assume any of that re: ghosts. Some ghosts have free will. Some are just translucent floaty people. Others are just pure rage (in that, that's basically the premise of The Grudge, IIRC, that the ghost that's left over is just the trauma itself in person form).

Questions like this I always say the same thing: it was in the script.

Now show us where the ghost touched you with this doll

Okay. I'll settle down.

It's just that I don't like seeing immoral/wicked/selfish/crooked behavior going unpunished, in real life or in fiction.

Thanks.

Well, no one does, but that's kind of the point of these movies: to examine feelings of hatred and guilt and fear. To viscerally punish sins. It's all metaphor, and it resonates with people because it's a form of catharsis.

Personally I don't mind immoral/wicked/selfish/crooked behaviour going unpunished in fiction. It doesn't always get punished in real life so why should it have to do so in fiction.

Yeah, I mean think about the purpose of instructive fiction: if you assume that stories should instruct to some degree (not an unreasonable position, at least sometimes), it can do that two ways:

1) Showing good behavior rewarded or bad behavior punished.

2) The opposite, in a way that makes you upset and therefore more fervent about those same ideals. Which is what might be happening here.

Probably hemorrhoids. Ghostly hemorrhoids.

It's just a thing with Japanese horror. The overwhelming majority of J-horror movies have seen play out pretty much the same. Something weird happens, people die, young woman investigates, finds out or gets told a child died there. No extra explanation, no extraneous source of corruption, nothing.

It's seems to be an accepted thing in Japan that if a kid dies in an unusual way, they have a good chance of becoming somewhat abstract serial killers.

I think it all makes sense now--why she had such immense power over water amongst other telekinetic/telepathic/supernatural abilities and why she was so ruthless in her pursuit for motherly love. Natasha is, in other words, not really who she was in life. She is, essentially a shell of her former self, literally and figuratively. It also explains why her rage and her vengeance is uncontainable short of appeasement--she's basically a literal force of nature.

I don't want to sound rude, especially since I've not seen the US remake of Dark Water, but what do you guys think of the remakes? I've given Ringu a try and was deeply disappointed. Imho japanese horror lives from it's (visual) style, that's glossy but rather as if it was pulled from an everyday routine. And "The Ring"....I dunno. It also doesn't help if popular stars appear in it. That somehow distracts me from immerging and identifying with the people within the story. And that is crucial for me to lose myself in the excitement and feel with them.

"Dark Water" was the second japanese horror movie I saw, after "Ringu". And I loved it!

I actually think The Ring is fantastic. It remains one of the most frightening experiences (not films!) I've ever had. It messed with me for a solid week (appropriately enough). I don't generally expect remakes to reach those kinds of heights, but I think that one was exceptional. The timing was good, too, I expect: after that I probably got a bit older, to the point where being that scared by a movie again might not have been possible (I was 18 when it came out).

Unlike @Yoda, I don't think too highly of The Ring and consider the original to be vastly superior. The same is true for Dark Water as well, though I need to mention that I haven't seen the remake since it was new. And to spare you from future disappointments, stay away from Pulse remake; it's really bad.