Ghost Ship

• Directed by Steve Beck
• October 25, 2002

A marine salvage crew in the Bering Sea discovers an ocean liner that has been missing since 1962.

You need to appreciate a movie that opens with up with a great kill. Here in Ghost Ship it involves a group of travelers enjoying a moonlight dance on an ocean liner when a steel cord bisects the lot. The pause before the blood and the splits is f*cking great! Some gore gets displayed with early CGI which is a bit flat. I can almost forgive that but I have issues elsewhere.

During the film blood leaks from holes in walls and at one point a swimming pool is meant to be filled with blood but it is all CGI. Back in the day such things would have been done practically but in 2002 they decided early CGI was the way.

A marine salvage crew is hired to recover a lost liner found still afloat in the Bering Sea discovered by pilot Jack Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) whose name is a dead giveaway. Turns out he is some evil spirit that gets people on the boat to collect a specific number of souls before going back to Hell or some such. There is also a bunch of presumably stolen gold on the boat that is supposed to be a lure after it is found but the scene we learn of it makes it appear EVERYBODY is surprised It is there.

The vagueness of the one character is fine, but he has a quota of souls he is supposed to get before he can go to hell or whatever. The question is: what’s the quota? And how exactly do these souls get marked? Are they tainted to do evil or are they just tricked by an evil illusion? Both seem to be the method but at the same time it also appears to be one or the other depending on which slight difference you take as the main factor.

There is also the realization by the cast of characters that this evil force brought them on the boat to fix it enough so it doesn’t sink. Is its power all allusion or does it have some ability to physically interact with the living? Every ghost on the ship passes through stuff but this spirit when it wants to lure our main characters onto the boat generates a picture. He even makes physical contact with them so given the available materials on the ship why did he not fix it himself?

Yet it is not all bad. Ghost Ship does have some interesting gore and a few cool kills, but what sells it for me is that it takes place on a ship. You could liken it to your general haunted house horror film but in a different setting. The small spaces and the darkness work in its favor and create a good atmosphere. That unfortunately is undone by the use of crap metal music like it is a guilty pleasure 80s horror. This took itself far more seriously than those. Mix that with the jump cuts as well as the atmosphere and possible  shocking moments were completely undermined.

Gabriel Byrne as Captain Sean Murphy, once they get to the ship, comes off as an alcoholic fighting his demons but that could also be interpreted as a supernatural entity trying to connect with the living to deliver a warning. Given other things I’m wondering if stuff was removed from the script or from the finished product which would explain why certain events feel unexplained. Makes for a confusing film when it stops trying to inundate the senses.

Ultimately, this is Julianna Margolis movie as the no-nonsense Maureen Epps. She sees the young ghost girl Katie Hardwood (Emily Browning) that can get a warning across via a vision. Murphy did get a clue too, but nobody believed him when tried to open some whoop ass on Ferriman.

Katie was a nice touch. Kudos to a then 14-year-old Emily Browning for making her haunting (no pun intended) but why was Katie bound to the ship? She wasn’t like the others and had the mark. She wasn’t a corrupted soul that he could claim so what kept her stuck there?

Can’t quite put my finger on it but I did enjoy my time even if it wasn’t quite what it should’ve been. Maybe because while it didn’t get too scary or creepy it did get to guilty pleasure. It had some gory-looking kills and an interesting idea that even if it was not executed as well as I would have liked did become entertaining. Haunted house stories are enjoyable but putting them in an unusual location makes them just a little bit better.

Or maybe my problem is that it had an ending which implied nothing had been solved or overcome despite seconds earlier showing the contrary. ‘We’re screwed’ endings are tough to pull off well. It is a careful act that few are up to the task of. The film closes with Maureen having sank the shit before it gets its uncertain number of souls being rescued and placed in an ambulance just as she watches the spirits of her friends (or simulations thereof) toting the evil gold treasure onto another boat. Based on the dialogue of the villain, it sounded like the sinking of the boat would certainly screw him up and it did appear to free the souls of those he claimed. So..?

Ghost Ship with a little bit more effort could have been a good horror film of the early 2000s but between music and some editing choices it just gets only to guilty pleasure.