SCARE-A-THON Totals to Date:
Total Movies Watched: 9
Total First Time Views: 5
Amount raised for BOXVILLE: $601.38
Ghost Ship (2002) d. Steve Beck (USA) (93 min) (3rd viewing)
In 1962, a young girl (Emily Browning, six years from playing Babydoll in SuckerPunch) witnesses a horrific accident on board the luxury ocean liner Antonia Graza that leaves its entire crew and passenger list on the R.I.P. list. The action then flashes forward a few decades to Captain Murphy’s (Gabriel Byrne) salvage crew being enticed by Canadian weather spotter Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) into tracking down the floating tombstone, with the promise of a big payday in gold bullion waiting within its deserted hull. Of course, being that this is a haunted house movie on the briny waves, as soon as they arrive at their destination, all manner of bizarre and macabre imagery begins to crop up, much of it ultimately lethal to their existence.
Unfortunately, the show-stopping opening set-piece of bloodletting represents the high-water mark in terms of thrills for this Dark Castle effort, helmed capably but by-the-numbers by Beck who directed the (slightly) superior reimagining of William Castle’s Thir13een Ghosts the year before.
The mid-level star-powered ensemble is capable enough (Juliana Margulies, Ron Eldard, Karl Urban, Isaiah Washington, with the very fetching Francesca Rettondini providing the sexiest sequences) but the script (by Mark Hanlon and John Pogue) often falls on the lazy side in terms of generating “scares.” Rats? Check. Floating skeletons? Check. Blood dripping from walls, ghostly apparitions, and water levels rising at inappropriate times? Check, check, and yawn.
While the film never really manages to generate any goosebumps, Graham Walker’s production design (much of it computer-generated) is actually quite excellent and things clip along at a tidy pace to its unsurprising but not unsatisfying conclusion. With lowered expectations, this is a capable enough popcorn-burner, and only half the time of a three-hour tour.
BONUS FEATURES:
NEW "This Isn’t Real" with Isaiah Washington (7 min)
NEW "Dark Castle At Sea" with producer Gil Adler (7 min)
NEW "Every Body On Board" with makeup effects supervisor Jason Baird (7 min)
NEW Audio Commentary With Director Steve Beck
Max On Set: Ghost Ship Featurette (15 min)
Visual Effects Featurette (6 min)
A Closer Look At The Gore Featurette (6 min)
Designing The Ghost Ship Featurette (6 min)
Secrets Of The Antonia Graza Clips (6 min)
Mudvayne “Not Falling” Music Video (3 min)
Theatrical Trailer
Ghost Ship is available now on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory and can be ordered HERE:
https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/ghost-ship-collector-s-edition?product_id=7419
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