Dir.
Steve Beck, 2002, US/Aus, 91 mins
Cast:
Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies, Isaiah Washington, Alex Dimitriades, Desmond Harrington, Emily Browning
The odds really are stacked against Ghost Ship from the start with a title that harkens back to low-level production values of the straight-to-video cheap thrill horrors that proliferated during the mid eighties. And the fact that it's the latest film from Dark Castle, the production company set up by Hollywood uber-producers Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis to produce "upmarket" horror films, does very little to assuage this fear.
It may come as a surprise then to learn that Ghost Ship is not too bad at all and, while its descent into the fantastic could have been handled a little better, what you have is a moderately good story with some genuinely effective and creepy moments.
Ghost Ship is worth seeing just for the opening sequence alone. We enter the film with a cruise ship floating on the see and a soundtrack that is will remind older audiences of the popular seventies series The Love Boat, which always ended happily ever after. With a well-edited montage of almost dreamlike images we see the crew and the passengers happily going about their everyday business on this sumptuous floating palace. The smiling faces, the sultry cabaret singer whose smoky voice accompanies the music, and the kindly captain who takes pity on and dances with the prim little girl in the white dress who is travelling alone. But.the music begins to take a discordant note and, as we watch, we see that there is something wrong with the ship, an accident is about to happen. Already dreamlike, keeping the audience distant and aware that they are privy to a ghostly re-enactment, the atmosphere grows more nightmarish with the haunting soundtrack, and faster paced with the editing, until the build-up of tension is released and the terrible thing happens. Like the passengers, we have that split second where we take stock of what has happened but as their realisation is quickly followed by their most gruesome deaths, the audience now identifies with the little girl, the sole survivor, it's horror releasing itself in her piercing scream.
.and bringing us into the story proper. A weather reporter, Ferriman (Desmond Harrington), has a photo of a cruiseliner floating in the Bering Sea. He knows it shouldn't be there, and no one else knows its there. He approaches a salvage crew headed by Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) and its co-owner, Epps (Julianna Margulies). The ship is in international waters so it's finders keepers and Ferriman wants a cut. The crew accept the job and set off to find the mystery ship, but not before Murphy has related the tale of the infamous Marie Celeste, the true story of a ship that was found floating without its crew in the 19th century. So remember audience - these things really DO happen.
They find the (remarkably solid) ghostly hulk and a quick inspection reveals it to be the Antonia Graza, a passenger ship that disappeared in 1962. Murphy, like the traditional storytelling seafarer that he is, demonstrates the same affectionate awe that Captain Ahab felt for Moby Dick.
It is the exploration of the wreckage that is most effective, particularly when the soundtrack is allowed to pause and just hushed voices and expectant, echoey silence is allowed to surface. The dark cavernous rooms trigger memories of The Shining or Alien, with Epps being posited as a Ripley-style heroine (and at one point even a Lara Croft), particularly when it becomes clear that she has a psychic connection with one of the ships current inhabitants - a prim little girl in a white dress (back to The Shining again). From here on in, the film begins to descend into the ludicrous by way of run-of-the-mill shock horror as the crewmates discover the ships precious cargo and, one by one, meet a gruesome death. However, with the demise of Greer (Isaiah Washington), we learn the full story of the tragic 'accident' that befell the passengers.
Murphy, meanwhile, has a had a chat with the ghostly captain (like you do) and - in a wonderful, referential Keyser Soze moment - sees a picture of a passenger picked up by the Antonia Graza the day before her tragic end. Needless to say, it's a face he recognises.
Dare I say it; this is one film that may have benefited from being slightly longer. The transition from somehow believable ghost story to the fantastic demonic is too rushed and comical, detracting from all that has gone before (think Jeepers Creepers). The ending is high-octane thrills and fun, which is more than you get from a lot of movies, but ultimately the film fails to make good its promise.
However, Ghost Ship is a lot better than its credentials might suggest, and Emily Browning is superb as Katie, the little girl.
And yes, be warned - the stage is set for Ghost Ship 2.
Jean Lynch
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