GHOST SHIP and the Grand Opening

GHOST SHIP (Blu-ray)

2002 / 91 min

From Warner Bros

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat🙀

Some of you might be old enough to remember the 1979 film, When a Stranger Calls. The iconic opening sequence was so masterfully executed and suspenseful that we tend to forget the rest of the movie was a plodding police procedural. Still, its place in horror history was all but assured.

Similarly, the jaw-dropping prologue to 2002’s Ghost Ship is brilliantly conceived, shocking and spectacularly violent. Some consider it one of the greatest death scenes ever created for a modern horror film, but even if one doesn’t necessarily agree, it’s something we haven’t seen before and certainly memorable. So memorable, in fact, that we might recall Ghost Ship being a better movie than it actually is.

Unlike When a Stranger Calls, the narrative, aesthetic and tone of Ghost Ship remains firmly within the horror genre. If nothing else, this is a great looking film. However, it shoots most of its creative wad during that prologue. The rest is a standard issue ghost story with characters and tropes we’ve seen in countless other movies.

Some hearts won't go on.

The basic plot features a rag-tag, opportunistic salvage crew led by Captain Murphy (Gabriel Byrne). They come across a derelict old cruise ship, the Antonia Graza, which went missing 40 years earlier. Eyeballing a massive payday, they plan to tow the ship (and the cache of gold they find) to port, but didn’t plan on gobs of ghosts - both evil and benevolent - still lurking on-board. This leads to a series of spooky set-pieces that are efficiently executed, but storywise, this is basically The Shining on a boat…with less interesting characters.

Typical of many horror movies, Ghost Ship makes the narrative mistake of offering more backstory and exposition than it needs, mostly provided by chatty ghosts. Still, some viewers prefer an explanation for everything, and admittedly, it does add context to that opening scene. 

Elsewhere, it’s kinda cool looking back to see Karl Urban in his first major Hollywood role, while sultry Francesca Rettondini (as the ship's seductive singer) is still fetching enough to be a special effect unto herself. And for a film that adheres so strictly to established horror conventions, some viewers might even look at Ghost Ship as creepy comfort food. But for one iconic scene, it briefly had us expecting something a bit more.

This is a re-issue of a Blu-ray edition first released in 2009.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - Max on Set: Ghost Ship features interviews and behind the scenes footage; A Closer Look at the Gore (title tells all); Designing the Ghost Ship; Visual Effects.

SECRETS OF THE ANTONIA GRAZA - This is an interactive game.

MUSIC VIDEO - “Not Falling,” by Mudvayne.

TRAILER