Upon arrival in the intended location, Murphy is called to the bridge, where his chief navigator is puzzled by the image of a craft that appears on the radar and then appears to disappear again. As the crew mates attempt to decipher the strange radar images, their tug collides with an enormous ship that suddenly looms out of nowhere. As Murphy runs his torchlight along the side of the craft, he gasps in awe at its size – and is then even more shocked when he sees the name Antonia Graza. Realising that he has made one of the greatest maritime discoveries in history, he claims the ship as his own and sets about the salvage task in hand.

Released in UK 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 The Matrix and The Th1rteen Ghosts, so between them, the 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.

The seed of mystery in this film is sown very early on in the proceedings, as a mystery figure instigates that ballroom massacre. With hindsight, any member of the audience could easily deduce the mysterious entity, but I somehow managed to disconnect my brain during this movie, and so the eventual explanation still intrigued me. Strangely enough, this is more important to the tone and feel of the story than the spectral inhabitants of the ship, who actually spend very little time terrorising Murphy’s salvage crew. Don’t be fooled by the film’s title into thinking that this is a spooky film that will make you jump – it’s actually more of a fantasy historical mystery story. I was quite disappointed by this in one sense, as I always enjoy a good ghost story and hoped to see spookier goings on than I did.

Visually, the film is nowhere near as exciting as it could be. Despite the potential for some fantastic set pieces aboard the Antonia Graza most of the action tends to take place in one or two darkened cabins or in the engine room. The idea of the cruise liner having fallen into decay after 40 years at sea could have presented us with lots of very interesting things to see and I can’t help thinking that the makers chickened out on us a bit here. The scenes involving distant or aerial shots of the ship were obviously computer-generated, but amidst the darkness and chaos below deck it was hard to pick out what was real and what was artificial. One touch that I enjoyed throughout the film was the constant trickling and dripping of water that echoed around the cinema, as the characters wandered in silence through the darkness.

The cast doesn’t really have enough material here to shine, and as such there were few memorable characters on board. Gabriel Byrne is quite likeable as the skipper, Murphy, but his scenes involve little more than looking haggard and puzzled. I quite liked Desmond Harrington as the mysterious stranger Jack Ferriman but the strongest performance came from Julianna Margulies, who came across like a younger version of Alien’s Ripley. I quite like these no-nonsense lead ladies, who are infinitely more likeable than their male equivalents.