“Ghost Ship” (2002)

Ghost Ship

Grade: C-

Capitalizing on the circa-2002 commercial success of The Perfect Storm, Cast Away and The Titanic comes Ghost Ship: a lazy movie about a haunted ocean liner. The tagline “Sea Evil” should tell you all you need to know. A few more notes on Ghost Ship:

Directing:

The Warner Bros./Dark Castle Entertainment partnership yielded quite a few horror movies in the early 2000s, including House on Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts, Gothika, House of Wax and Ghost Ship. Steve Beck directed two of them (Thirteen Ghosts and Ghost Ship), but the films mostly belong to executive producers Robert Zemeckis, Joel Silver and Gilbert Adler. Ghost Ship is like a Tales from the Crypt episode stretched out to 90 minutes, complete with dingy settings, bad special effects and uninspired jump scares. But, hey, at least that opening scene — in which the passengers of the MS Antonia Graza are all decapitated by a cable — is kinda cool.

Acting:

The cast of second-tier actors (including Julianna Margulies, Gabriel Byrne and Isaiah Washington) is occasionally serviceable but is brought down whenever they have to show real emotion. The dialogue is often laughable (not their fault), but so are the deliveries (that’s on them). That’s why, so often, there are scenes of the crew just cracking jokes and laughing. It’s the most genuine acting they can do.

Writing:

All in all, not a bad concept: haunted house genre goes nautical. But then it tries to become an action movie (a team of “badass” shipwreck salvagers finally meet their match!) … and a mystery movie (who killed the MS Antonia Graza?) … and a supernatural thriller (one of the characters turns out to be the Devil?!). Anyway, the storyline lacks logic, the dialogue sets new definitions of inessential, and the entire film constantly doubles back on its own implausible rules. You can’t have a mystery movie without a mystery, and you can’t have a scary movie without scares. The screenwriters (Mark Hanlon and John Pogue) could’ve learned a thing or two from Scooby-Doo.

Music:

At times the orchestral score by John Frizzell is elegant, providing a much-needed atmosphere to a film that seriously lacks it. But then I’m reminded of the opening credits sequence, which is intentionally cheesy for no reason — I already know I’m watching Ghost Ship; the pink font and the schmaltzy music ain’t gonna “trick” me. And I’m also reminded of the “revealing” flashback, which contains a hilariously out-of-place industrial rock song called “My Little Box.” And I’m finally reminded of the film’s conclusion, which uses Mudvayne of all bands to make the last scene appear “epic.” What a godawful mishmash of sounds.

Ending (SPOILERS)

The grand reveal of one of the characters being a demonic entity isn’t properly explained. Then again, Ghost Ship for the most part leaves logic on the poop deck. So, the Devil is susceptible to dynamite? Well, yes and no, because he returns on a different boat the scene after he is blown up. And then Maureen Epps (Margulies), our sole survivor, shouts “NOOOOO!” as the film cuts to the end credits. Did Steve Beck rip off this ending from Scary Movie?

“A ghost ship.” – Dodge

Why Ghost Ship gets a C-:

Ghost Ship lacks scares and logic. It can be enjoyed as an unintentional comedy, nothing more, nothing less.

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