... I’m unsure if Ghost Ship used this wet-o-rama, but if they did, I’m resting part of the blame firmly on the hairy shoulders of the aforementioned bearded one.
Well, I can’t make a lot of unfair blame-stabs, so let me aim my dagger at the true culprits – Dark Castle Entertainment. Yes folks, ... Read review
A routine salvage operation turns into a hellish nightmare for Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) and ... more
his crew (Julianna Marguilies, Ron Eldard and Isaiah Washington). Shockingly gory and chilling events unfold on board an abandoned luxury liner as the team come f...
Hazel Court (Masque of the Red Death, The Raven) and Dermot Walsh (Make Mine a Million, ... more
The Straw Man) star as a young couple who decide to buy a luxury steamboat for a romantic getaway. They think that they've found the perfect boat, and scoff at warnings that it's haunted.
In the midst of a 1962 pleasure cruise, the passengers and crew of Italian luxury liner ... more
the Antonia Graza are systematically slaughtered and left in pieces by a gang of terrorists. Forty years later, the ship is spotted drifting in the Bering sea. Fresh off a six-month journey, an Alaska-based seafaring salvage team lead by Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) and Epps (Julianna Margulies) are approached by a Canadian weather spotter (Desmond Harrington) who noticed the derelict vessel on a flyover. Tempted by the possibility of untold riches, the crew takes on the job of tracking down the ship. Once aboard though, strange things start to happen, beginning with Epps's sighting of the ghost of a little girl. After the team finds a cache of gold, all hell breaks loose, and the angry ghosts make themselves known--and begin destroying the intruders one by one.
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
Advantages: Some interesting gore Disadvantages: Not interesting enough!
...watery set. I’m unsure if Ghost Ship used this wet-o-rama, but if they did, I’m resting part of the blame firmly on the hairy shoulders of the aforementioned bearded one.
Well, I can’t make a lot of unfair blame-stabs, so let me aim my dagger at the true culprits – Dark Castle Entertainment. Yes folks, the people what brung you The House On Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts just don’t learn. Or maybe it’s chumps like me who don’t learn ... ...well, deaths. The intro to Ghost Ship doesn’t rival the car-smash spectacle of Final Destination 2, but it comes close. Limbs, torsos, entrails – all yer gory favourites.
Thing is, this is much like masturbating more than once in a day. Each subsequent time is less rewarding and painful to endure. At the stage when only air comes out, you are forced to re-evaluate your priorities. Now ladies, you may not be able to relater. So I would ... more
Titanic has a lot to answer for. Celine Dion’s heartless warbling. That much-aped “flying” scene. Cameron’s Simpsons-rip-off Oscar speech. Most of all, it has assisted in the creation of many a water-based movie, thanks to the construction of its huge watery set. I’m unsure if Ghost Ship used this wet-o-rama, but if they did, I’m resting part of the blame firmly on the hairy shoulders of the aforementioned bearded one.
Well, I can’t make a lot of unfair blame-stabs, so let me aim my dagger at the true culprits – Dark Castle Entertainment. Yes folks, the people what brung you The House On Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts just don’t learn. Or maybe it’s chumps like me who don’t learn – seeing as I always think, “well…it can’t be as bad as the last one…”
Before you go any further, gentle reader, I must disclaim myself by stating that I get a bit graphic later in this opinion, so if mine words could offend thee, get the pluck out.
***THE PLOT***
Something years ago (probably 40, I can’t recall), a plot device lead to the deaths of lots of passengers aboard ocean liner ‘The Antiona Graza’. Now, something years later, a crew of hot-headed marine salvage agents are offered the chance by Mr Obvious Bad Guy to located and – yes! – salvage the old boat. Ship. Whatever.
WHO COULD HAVE IMAGINED, that when they board the wrecked vessel, spookiness ensues? It now boils down to who out of the nondescript characters will survive – and can the feisty heroine POSSIBLY come away unscathed?
***STEERAGE***
Hollywood leg-end/provocateur William Goldman once made the point that directors often get the credit for a movie when it is in fact the writer who provides the larger part of the creative input. Well, the writer is not beyond reproach for this crumminess, but I’ll eat my neck off if director Steve Beck didn’t get a slap round the legs for this. You may remember Mr Beck’s previous outing – Thirteen Ghosts. The movie that thought VERY LOUD THINGS were the best way to induce scares. The movie shone only through its production design.
Did Mr Beck learn from his previous caterwauling caterpillar’s anus of a movie? Nope. This is the same bucket o’ style over content. The fantastic opening sequence recreates the lavish mood and opulence of a luxury cruise, and has a fantastically gory climax – which owes a nod to small indie sci-fi flick ‘Cube’. Even here, though, Beck is unable to reign in his precious (read: irritating) flash-cut technique, where the camera suddenly speeds up to pan past something, then slows once more.
With the exception of some nice flourishes from time to time, the direction is far too busy. The constantly moving camera adds interest at times – but for the most it is too hyperactive. As such, any potentially interesting performances are lost amongst the “don’t spend more than 5 seconds on a shot” modus operandi.
***BILGE TANK***
Speaking of not spending long on things, there is barely any room for character development here. This becomes irritating when – as usual – you are meant to care about the characters. Let’s take a brief glimpse at them, shall we? And yeah., I don’t know the character names – but never mind, if you need to know ‘em so bad, take a look on IMDB.com. It barely matters. They’re just clichés…
The Captain – he knows a lot about the sea, and loves his crew. He also loves salvaging things.
The Feisty Female – she takes no isht (anagram) from anyone!
The Boat Steering Guy – obviously doomed as we hardly ever see him, and he listens to rock music.
The Family Guy – he has a wife but he’s horny out on the sea! The constant rocking of the boat must give him ‘transit wood’!
The Wisecracker – he has a beard! He makes jokes! DEAD!
The Guy Who Fancies The Girl But Won’t Say It – ah….come on! Will he get his chance? Who knows!?@# Also looks a bit like a Blue Peter presenter.
The Mysterious Stranger – COULD HE POSSIBLY BE THE PERSON WHO SET THIS ALL UP?
The plot is a mish-mash of lots of other movies. Or so it seems. Thing is, it’s easy to say that – there are now so many movies, and so there are bound to be occasional moments of similarity. But it still rings true – and it still bothers me. The buddy-buddy crew will always remind me of the camaraderie of the marines in Aliens. The movies also smacked of its forerunner, The House On Haunted Hill – in both tone (there are ghosts!) and the one-by-one picking off of the characters based on their character flaws.
Of course, the boat steering guy has to die (in more or less the same way as in Deep Rising) so the characters are forced to find an alternative means of escape. There is then “World War Movie Syndrome”, where anyone who mentions having anything of value to go back to once they “get off this stinkin’ wreck” (or “once this war is over…”) is automatically on the list to become a professional poppy-pusher-upper.
There is no tragedy in watching these characters die. They are unsympathetic, greedy people. As such, I was just waiting to see what the next death would involve. This would be fine in a hokey B-movie, but the actors leave their tongues firmly in the centres of their mouths for the duration. You cannot take anyone seriously when they are watching thousands of blue CGI ghosts form a spiral in the sky and drift up to heaven! NOT EVEN…ANYONE!
***MESS HALL***
Oh, there are a lot of messes – well, deaths. The intro to Ghost Ship doesn’t rival the car-smash spectacle of Final Destination 2, but it comes close. Limbs, torsos, entrails – all yer gory favourites.
Thing is, this is much like masturbating more than once in a day. Each subsequent time is less rewarding and painful to endure. At the stage when only air comes out, you are forced to re-evaluate your priorities. Now ladies, you may not be able to relater. So I would instead offer this metaphor forth – constant receiving of oral sex. I have my sources and they indicate that whilst prolonged “action” may be pleasant at first, it has the tendency to become irritating and sometimes sore.
And so we come to the main death sequences – hell, let’s continue the wanky allusions and call them ‘le petit morts’. Maybe the director felt he blew his wad too soon, but the deaths are absolutely pathetic – and mostly happen off-screen. One exception is the inevitable explosion, but that is a stock and trade steal from the sequence in Con Air when Cyrus’ prison cell is raided. The only other showstopper is the nasty offing of the Spanish songstrel from the introduction, whose death is seen in flashback, and is guaranteed to make you go “eeuuurggh!”
***FORE AN’ DAFT***
My final rant concerns the absolute nonsensery that pervades the movie. On the discovery of some crates, the feisty female kicks open a CLOSED CHEST WITH LOTS OF HEAVY BAGS ON IT to find lots of rats inside on top of lots of gold bars. How and why did they get in there? To eat the gold? Anyway, she then rallies the whole team back to look at the ingots. They prise the lid off the SAME CHEST with a friggin’ crowbar! Which is suddenly PADLOCKED! And it’s ratless! This happens in the space of 3 minutes – did the makers even watch the movie back before releasing it? GNNNNN!!! It makes my ass bleed!
Next point - the ghost of the little girl who appears to warn the crew. The feisty female only ever sees her. OBVIOUSLY – this means that (a) the men can discredit her for being feisty and therefore obviously a bit MAD, and (b) she can relate to the little girl because they are both female, and her maternal instincts can be projected. Just like they are onto the crew! It makes SO MUCH sense!
Then there is the plot device that is not even SUBTLY pertained to in ONE SINGLE FRAME until it actually occurs. You see, the suspicious stranger (who disappears for most of the movie after the gold is found) is harvesting souls for some reason – probably evil, you know how it goes – which is fine. You suspect him for the event in the intro sequence. But there is also some very-quickly-skirted-over massacre of EVERY SINGLE PASSENGER by some gang in order to steal the gold on board. Did he engineer this to get the souls? It’s never explained.
This “key moment” is viewed as a flashback which plays for around 4 or 5 minutes, with a terrible sub-Linkin-Park talky-rap pop-rock song played over it, which both ruins any atmosphere that the movie may have had before, and also is FILLED with whip-pan, jump cut, quick/slow camera moves that are very VERY annoying.
***DOCK THIS FOR A LARK***
For all the nits that I have picked, this could be counted in the new wave of B-movies. It’s perhaps too early to see it as a hokey, classic piece of trash due to the fact that there are some B-list actors in it. Sure, there are flaws, but there are flaws with the crappy movies that I love to bits. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t watch them again. The imperfections become charming quirks, and repeated watchings make me appreciate it for what it is – brainless fun. And yes, the deaths of the main characters are uninspired, but it’s not so dreadful that it makes me want to rub sugar into my eyes and then shove my face into an anthill.
Oh, but the denouement is balls. Cheesy balls. And the VERY ending is inexplicable.
Try this if you liked Thirteen Ghosts, and may the creator have mercy on your everlasting soul as you turn into blue mist and float into the sky.
QUESTIONS RAISED BY THIS MOVIE:
o What man would try to have sex with a ghost? o Why would you try eating food from a can that is over 40 years old? o Why would you act shocked when that food turned into maggots? o Why can only some benevolent ghosts touch things? o Is it EVER a good time to let someone you have loved from afar know how you feel? o How is it possible to swim away from a several-hundred-tonne sinking ship when you are only a few yards away from it? o Are freed spirits really light blue?
Advantages: The beginning. Disadvantages: The rest.
...I suppose, but after that Ghost Ship just goes downhill. No, on second thought, going downhill doesn't quite do it justice. Sinks like a stone is better.
On paper at least this 'haunted-house-at-sea' shocker could have been, should have been quite good. The basic premise - a haunted passenger liner - is reasonably intriguing (think Titanic meets The Shining) and it's produced by none other than Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver under the banner of ... ...popcorn munching and sweetpaper rustling. Ghost Ship was no different. The popcorn-chorus was still in full swing when the pink, pseudo-romantic credits were rolling and swooning, classical music flooded the cinema. The camera zooms in onto the deck of the Antonia Graza, a 1960's luxury cruise liner where three dozen passengers are partying on the deck. As we draw closer, a malfunctioning, high-tensile cable whips across the dancefloor, simultaneously ...
Spike_ 05.07.2003 (06.07.2003)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Ghost Ship (DVD)
Advantages: That delightfully gory intro Disadvantages: Lack of spooks
...cinemas on January 24th 2003, Ghost Ship was brought to us by the creative team of Steve Beck, Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver. Steve Beck has a tradition of maritime movies, having previously been in charge of the visual effects in The Abyss and The Hunt For Red October. He also directed Th13rteen Ghosts. Zemeckis is no stranger to horror/suspense films, having previously directed What Lies Beneath and Tales from the Crypt. Joel Silver produced ... ...trio certainly promised good things. Ghost Ship is many things. At times, it is quite macabre, and at other times quite intriguing. Sadly, it is also rather silly and does contain more than its fair share of cliches, but despite these criticisms, I still thoroughly enjoyed it.
To find a film with an 18-certificate these days is quite rare, so you could quite easily be led to believe that Ghost Ship would be quite horrific. In comparison to many ...
LostWitness 27.01.2003 (19.02.2004)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Ghost Ship (DVD)
Advantages: I'm thinking about it Disadvantages: Where shall I start
I wanted to see Ghost ship at the cinema but being unable to get to the pictures at a time when the film was showing, I wasn’t too disappointed – knowing it wouldn’t be too long before it was on DVD.
The time finally came and it was released on DVD, so I added it my queue at my DVD rental site and waited for its delivery.
I sat in anticipation with my family as we placed it in our DVD player, thinking it would scare the pants off us! I was wishfully ... ...believe there could be a Ghost ship 2 (lets hope not) I was really disappointed by this film-it was a complete let down. It was hardly scary enough to frighten the ‘milder’ person, although it was a little bloody. The plot of the film is very simple and basic, and the film didn’t seem too long – which was a good thing for those of us that were bored. Set mainly on a derelict ship of the film sees the demise of the salvage crew one by one, which is ...
dabmim 10.10.2003 (12.10.2003)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Ghost Ship (DVD)
Advantages: Erm... the opening scene is excellent and so is the very end... Disadvantages: ... it's the bit in the middle that's rubbish!
...when no-one's looking and a ghost who can morph into the body of Epps and make believe she's trying to kill Murphy. Truly bizarre. My favourite part in the film is where Katie 'shows' Epps what really happened the night the Antonia Graza disappeared and to be honest it was more or less what you'd already figured out but it was good to see all the different aspects of the story start to make a bit of sense. Why did the people die? What happened to ... ...one of these films but Ghost Ship didn't have any amount of the 'jump' factor. The story line was daft (find gold on a creepy deserted ship and hang around to be killed), the characters were pitiful and the death scenes were a mixture of over the top and mind numbingly boring. For some reason, Ghost Ship carries an 18 certificate and I can't understand why it wasn't given a 15 as it isn't THAT gory to give delicate little darlings at 15 (yeah, right!) ...
Fruity_Tart 17.11.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Ghost Ship (DVD)
Advantages: Some genuinely scary moments Disadvantages: The second half of the film, some of the acting.
...I would read a few Ghost Ship reviews before I set out, unfortunately there was none, so here I am writing the first one!
So in the cinema, most of the other films I have already seen, ghost ship starts in 5 minutes. Ghost Ship it is.
So I still don’t know who made the film, the director or producer, I didn’t catch their names on the credits, but the film is in the Alien style, although I’m pretty sure Ridley Scott didn’t direct this!
The opening ... ...title implies this is a ghost ship, but maybe not the kind of ghost you may expect, the film takes a turn for the worse as the plot twist unfolds. And chances are you will not see this twist coming, I didn’t see it coming at all, but don’t get your hopes up, this is no Fight Club or Sixth Sense, and you'd probably end up wishing it was simething different.
The music wasn’t memorable really memorable, and it’s not a score you would rush out to buy, ...
markysay 27.01.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Ghost Ship (DVD)
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Reviews which might be of interest for "Ghost Ship (DVD)"
Advantages: excellent makeup and sets Disadvantages: the slice and dice repeated in Ghost Ship
splattered scenes for those who like the taste of ketchup!
Produced by Joel Silver(an absolute ton of films to his credit including all The Matrix movies, GhostShip, Gothika, Swordfish to name but a few) and Robert Zemeckis (GhostShip, Gothika and more). If you watch GhostShip you will see the 'slicing effect' used in that movie as it is in Thirteen Ghosts.
Extras on DVD:
Special Features:
Directors Commentary, 12 Featurettes, The Making Of Featurette, Filmographies, Trailer
Technical Details:
Region 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 Wide Screen
Running Time: 87 minutes
Main Language: English
Sound Mix: DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS
Certification: UK 15 ...
Advantages: You don't have to have seen the first 3 series to enjoy this Disadvantages: No extras on the DVD
# The Wrong Stuff
# Dreams
# A Single Drop of Rain
# Unchained
# The Play's the Thing
# Running For Honor
# Temptation Eyes
# The Last Gunfighter
# A Song for the Soul
# GhostShip
# Roberto!
# It's A Wonderful Leap
# Moments to Live
# The Curse of Ptah-Hotep
# Stand Up
# A Leap for Lisa
~~~DVD EXTRAS~~~
Sadly when the DVD's were released in the UK, no additional features were included in the menus (with the exception of Series 5, where you get a couple of "blueprints" of the Quantum Leap Project). ...
Advantages: Unusual British horror movie Disadvantages: Nothing new for the most part
their box.
The DVD is the UK is released on Marc Morris and Jake West's Nucleus label, not quite the calibre or standard of their other releases in respect of notoriety, in fact I doubt had it not been for this release that nobody would ever have heard of London Voodoo, it was after all one of the labels first releases but it's a well deserved release.
In respect of special features I can't really comment on them, on two different DVD's I was unable to get more than 6 minutes in the making of documentary. There are a string of other Nucleus DVD trailers including Gwendoline, Fausto 5.0, The Ugliest Woman In The World, Between Your Legs and GhostShip.
The most interesting aspect of all about London Voodoo is its pretty hard to get hold of, Play.com is always sold out, as is Amazon, Lovefilm always has "A likely long wait" flash up if ...
The 'Antonia Graza' has been missing since 1962 so when a group of salvagers discover a mysterious vessel floating off the coast of Alaska they realise that this is its remains. Whilst towing the ship towards harbour strange things start to happen on board and the crew becomes trapped inside...
Behind The Scenes Documentary, Visual Effects Featurette
DVD Description
In the midst of a 1962 pleasure cruise, the passengers and crew of Italian luxury liner the Antonia Graza are systematically slaughtered and left in pieces by a gang of terrorists. Forty years later, the ship is spotted drifting in the Bering sea. Fresh off a six-month journey, an Alaska-based seafaring salvage team lead by Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) and Epps (Julianna Margulies) are approached by a Canadian weather spotter (Desmond Harrington) who noticed the derelict vessel on a flyover. Tempted by the possibility of untold riches, the crew takes on the job of tracking down the ship. Once aboard though, strange things start to happen, beginning with Epps's sighting of the ghost of a little girl. After the team finds a cache of gold, all hell breaks loose, and the angry ghosts make themselves known--and begin destroying the intruders one by one.
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