Death Ship is a 1980 horror film that opens on the sea with an old ship storming across the waves. It’s seemingly controlled by ghosts and a German voice is heard over the intercom. At the same time on an apparently near by cruise liner a party is going on. The captain of the ship (George Kennedy) is just about to retire and hand over control to Marshall his second in command played by Richard Crenna.
The two ships are apparently on a collision course but this is really badly created in the film as whenever you see the old haunted ship its daylight but whenever you see the cruise liner is in pitch darkness. The two ships have clearly been filmed at two different times of day and it’s such an obvious mistake that the audience can’t miss.
Anyway, the ships crash and the cruise liner is seen to suffer a lot of damage (only seen from the inside) and before we know it eight people are on a raft having got off the ship. There was no sinking of the ship, no explanation where all the other people went (presumably drowned) or even where the other ship that crashed into them went and no debris of a sunken ship floating around; just these people in their raft.
They find the captain floating in the water and after struggling to get him aboard the ghost ship appears behind them. They try to get on board but this is more difficult than it seems, the ships seems to have a life of its own and they’re constantly being attacked by swinging ropes, stairs falling and other inanimate objects taking control. The ship starts to pick them off and they realise that the occurrences
aren’t just accidents. The captain starts to go slightly mad and see images of what is to come as well as a constant image of a lonely figure on the ships bridge. They learn that the vessel is apparently German and from around the Second World War. More ghostly stuff happens and more people die and the captain gets madder.
What I Thought
What attracted me to Death Ship was the art work and name similarity to that of the 2002 film Ghost Ship. Ghost Ship was an excellent haunted ship story in my opinion and I was hoping this to be more of the same or even an original with Ghost Ship being only a remake. However, these are distinct films and should not be confused and Ghost Ship is vastly superior.
Death Ship got off to a bad start, as I say, that whole daylight-darkness thing really let it down from the start as well as the bit of a plot hole where the story goes from crash to post instantly and no in between. After that it was also very slow. It had taken them the best part of half and hour to get onto the ship and once they do get on there’s a further half an hour of investigation; of doors opening and closing; and of music starting and stopping - all very mild horror. They learn relatively little during this period and though people are dying I just didn’t find it scary or even all that exciting. The directing was quite dull, some of the cinematography was good but the directing seemed slow and made some bad choices with slow motion and the film had some horrible keyboard music here and there but in amongst some decent macabre music.
The last 40 minutes or so is where the film picked up a bit. The captains finally stopped assing about in bed and gone fully mad for us - thinking himself a Nazi naval officer. Some of the images that he hallucinated whilst in bed start to come true and the nature of the ship is unveiled and we also have a rather bloody gratuitously long scene in the shower and the discovery of a Nazi room (literally) and a torture room. Nevertheless this didn’t make up for the rest of the film the directing sort of worked and gave a sort of insane feel to it but it‘s not a style I like and also to be honest I think the whole “loud annoying noise” business that causes people to hold their ears and act in agony (badly) was such a cop out from doing something decent with a pretty good concept. It’s so Adam West Batman. So maybe the last half an hour wasn’t all that great in actual fact. It was directed by Alvin Rakoff who seems to have largely done TV work.
It had some alright special effects. The destruction of the inside of the cruise ship was good when the two ships collide but it avoided showing the sinking or the actual colliding of the ships.
I don’t like George Kennedy and I never will. I don’t think he’s a good actor and in this film he acts like a complete d%$k. He’s all grumpy because he’s not captain anymore but he also whinges about how being the captain of a cruise liner is crap. What the hell does he want? He’s such a sulky whinge early on that it’s never clear whether he’s just gone mad or it’s the ships influence. That may make the film sound a bit more mysterious and interesting but it’s really not. I don’t think that was on purpose.
Richard Crenna is best known as Colonel Trautman from the Rambo films. He was alright, not much you can say about him in this film. He’s the hero and has his wife and two children with him and his wife looks like such a b)%*h. I can’t really put my finger on why but she just does, she’s got this big Aryan afro hairstyle but that’s not it. Saul Rubinek also had a part as the comedian.
It’s a pity this film wasn’t any good and I honestly hoped and expected it would be. The whole Nazi ship thing had so much potential but like the film Outpost the film makers didn’t seem to know what to do with it. So they just made a bland horror film, which incidentally has a Nazi context. I’m really putting my money on the Return to Castle Wolfenstein film delivering with regard to Nazi horror. The only real Nazi thing about the boat other than it being German was this one room full of Nazi paraphernalia (just like that episode of Father Ted). Why would the Nazi’s have such a room? It also appeared to have this curtained off private booth which had a big portrait of Hitler in it - because that’s what young Nazi naval officers get off to. They did also have this torture room that they discovered later on and I think it’s worth pointing out that there was one corpse in a position to be water-boarded therefore in Dick Cheney’s dictionary this must only be an “enhanced interrogation” room or is it only enhanced interrogation when against Muslims? Who knows? It’s irrelevant.
Overall
Overall it’s not a great film. It has some good stuff in it but it’s only near the end and not enough to save everything else. It had a lot of potential but didn’t deliver. The directing wasn’t great but did give the film a insane tone in parts but the film had some real obvious flaws with continuity and plot holes and there’s more than I’ve laid out. The acting was largely okay and my dislike of George Kennedy is more subjective to me than there being any real problem with him in this film but largely it’s a “who cares how they acted” sort of shambles with lifeless characters. I wouldn’t recommend it. Get yourself Ghost Ship instead, a much more worth while purchase.
Who I’d Punch
The little boy who had to keep going to the toilet. He’d be peeing, I’d be punching. I hate it when people can’t hold it in - be warned.
Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddOnQGLbIM4
I love the way it says “It came out of the night”. NO IT DIDN’T. That was a major error with the film, you can actually see in that trailer how it’s a lot brighter around the death ship than the cruise ship.
Written by Phelim McC. Don’t steal it, I have friends in the internet police
Pictures of Death Ship (DVD)
Death Ship (DVD)
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2000 - Horror - Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Carmen Electra, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, James Van Der Beek, Keenen Ivory Wayans
Love your review, your right about the weather round the Death Ship though
Seresecros 25.07.2009 15:27
Do you really know people in the internet police, or are you just saying that.
thereddragon 14.06.2009 11:42
Great entertaining review on what sounds like such a lame film that even I wouldn't like it, E. Is there really going to be a 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein' film, then? If so, I wonder if it'll be any better than all of the other game adaptation films which have all been terrible, with maybe the exception of 'Postal' which I did really enjoy.
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![Death Ship [1980] [DVD]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/74852585.jpg)
