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DVD Review
Ghost Ship
By Lee Tistaert Published April 13, 2003
US Release: October 25, 2002
Directed by: Steve Beck
Starring: Gabriel Byrne , Julianna Margulies , Ron Eldard , Isaiah Washington
R
Running Time: 88 minutes
Domestic Box Office: $30,079,000
Directed by: Steve Beck
Starring: Gabriel Byrne , Julianna Margulies , Ron Eldard , Isaiah Washington
R
Running Time: 88 minutes
Domestic Box Office: $30,079,000
C-
120 of 143
A bore of desperate attempts at forming fright
In one dimension, Ghost Ship is a confusing movie; from start to finish, one can keep pondering if this is a horror feature or simply an excuse to show off visual effects.
Of course, the answer could be both, yet the flick has one major defect: it is not scary. Its intent seems to be to go full throttle with gore and the visual nature of the story. However, it forgets that to accomplish the primary goal of being spooky, it is highly suggestive that rather then directly informing us what in fact is spooky, to let us decide for ourselves (for the larger impact). Instead of delivering psychological terror and developing a wondrously creepy environment, the screenwriters and director have handed over cheap boo scares that despite one jump making me twitch slightly, the entire show is just a bore of desperate attempts at forming fright.
There are practically no characters involved in this game; that is, they don?t necessarily matter. Hell, it?s a horror film; we know it?s going to end up being a cat-and-mouse chase through the dark corridors leading to bloody deaths. But wait, there are the visual effects to intrigue our minds. But perhaps this is a ploy to get our attention spans off the nonexistent script or even the lackluster performances; unfortunately, the ploy didn?t really work on me.
Ghost Ship follows a salvage crew coming back from a recently completed assignment when they get offered to recover a lost vessel that saw its victims parish some forty years ago due to the ship?s sudden malfunction; of course, the characters just don?t know this yet. When the clan arrives at the eerie destination, weird mishaps seem to arise as the events get creepy?or maybe more so for the characters and not the audience. As time evolves it becomes transparent that the once dead is now coming back to life in the form of ghosts, haunting the present crew. Why is it necessary for the deceased to act harshly toward the current members? If you?re willing to look that deeply into it, you might have lost the film?s focal point.
The horror feature is an almost sorry excuse of a film. Starting from the load-up, Ghost Ship is given a cheesy treatment that soon transitions into a sequence where it?s truly difficult to figure out if what unfolds is aimed to come off visually stimulating or laugh-out-loud funny in a very dark way. When the crisis rolled out in the opening scene, I ended up laughing and the sequence involved the deaths of many on a ballroom dance floor. Now, at the time I was even asking myself if I was in a devilish mood, as people dying is usually not a comedic matter. But how it is displayed in the intro can be (humorous) depending on how you look at it; and frankly, I doubt I?m the only victim of this questionable offense.
In one defense, Ghost Ship doesn?t try to be anything more than it is; however, what it is can be hard to decipher. For instance, there?s barely a script present and the dialogue planned for the actors is as fundamental as one can go. When it comes to freaking out its audience, the film resorts to that music cueing to that big shock jump or the movement of the camera suggesting something major is about to unravel. The problem is that the flick aims to be a horror movie and doesn?t fulfill its deeds. To come off effective, the characters need to be likable and the material fed to them for performance must be solid for sympathy and bonding to form between the viewer and the persona.
Unfortunately for the actors intertwined, their substance reveals little about themselves. But when we indeed ask for character breakdown, we get our largest spool of information when the characters decide to yell at each other; we finally have discovered that they?re mad and terrified. In one angle, that is a start in character development. In another, it?s not exactly the start we want.
The entire show is relentless in unnecessary gore and violence and still comes off as if it?s going to scare somebody in the room; I?m not quite sure whom that somebody will be, but I?ll keep an eye out. Directed by Steve Beck (Thirteen Ghosts), a guy who evidently doesn?t have deep knowledge surrounding how such material works, he?s more focused on the visual element of the feature that he forgets that directing is part of the paycheck as well.
Despite being slightly watch-able (for sound and visual purposes), it?s just not scary or creepy to the slightest bit. And for a film marketed as that of one in the genre, it has nearly failed in its basic ambition.
Of course, the answer could be both, yet the flick has one major defect: it is not scary. Its intent seems to be to go full throttle with gore and the visual nature of the story. However, it forgets that to accomplish the primary goal of being spooky, it is highly suggestive that rather then directly informing us what in fact is spooky, to let us decide for ourselves (for the larger impact). Instead of delivering psychological terror and developing a wondrously creepy environment, the screenwriters and director have handed over cheap boo scares that despite one jump making me twitch slightly, the entire show is just a bore of desperate attempts at forming fright.
There are practically no characters involved in this game; that is, they don?t necessarily matter. Hell, it?s a horror film; we know it?s going to end up being a cat-and-mouse chase through the dark corridors leading to bloody deaths. But wait, there are the visual effects to intrigue our minds. But perhaps this is a ploy to get our attention spans off the nonexistent script or even the lackluster performances; unfortunately, the ploy didn?t really work on me.
Ghost Ship follows a salvage crew coming back from a recently completed assignment when they get offered to recover a lost vessel that saw its victims parish some forty years ago due to the ship?s sudden malfunction; of course, the characters just don?t know this yet. When the clan arrives at the eerie destination, weird mishaps seem to arise as the events get creepy?or maybe more so for the characters and not the audience. As time evolves it becomes transparent that the once dead is now coming back to life in the form of ghosts, haunting the present crew. Why is it necessary for the deceased to act harshly toward the current members? If you?re willing to look that deeply into it, you might have lost the film?s focal point.
The horror feature is an almost sorry excuse of a film. Starting from the load-up, Ghost Ship is given a cheesy treatment that soon transitions into a sequence where it?s truly difficult to figure out if what unfolds is aimed to come off visually stimulating or laugh-out-loud funny in a very dark way. When the crisis rolled out in the opening scene, I ended up laughing and the sequence involved the deaths of many on a ballroom dance floor. Now, at the time I was even asking myself if I was in a devilish mood, as people dying is usually not a comedic matter. But how it is displayed in the intro can be (humorous) depending on how you look at it; and frankly, I doubt I?m the only victim of this questionable offense.
In one defense, Ghost Ship doesn?t try to be anything more than it is; however, what it is can be hard to decipher. For instance, there?s barely a script present and the dialogue planned for the actors is as fundamental as one can go. When it comes to freaking out its audience, the film resorts to that music cueing to that big shock jump or the movement of the camera suggesting something major is about to unravel. The problem is that the flick aims to be a horror movie and doesn?t fulfill its deeds. To come off effective, the characters need to be likable and the material fed to them for performance must be solid for sympathy and bonding to form between the viewer and the persona.
Unfortunately for the actors intertwined, their substance reveals little about themselves. But when we indeed ask for character breakdown, we get our largest spool of information when the characters decide to yell at each other; we finally have discovered that they?re mad and terrified. In one angle, that is a start in character development. In another, it?s not exactly the start we want.
The entire show is relentless in unnecessary gore and violence and still comes off as if it?s going to scare somebody in the room; I?m not quite sure whom that somebody will be, but I?ll keep an eye out. Directed by Steve Beck (Thirteen Ghosts), a guy who evidently doesn?t have deep knowledge surrounding how such material works, he?s more focused on the visual element of the feature that he forgets that directing is part of the paycheck as well.
Despite being slightly watch-able (for sound and visual purposes), it?s just not scary or creepy to the slightest bit. And for a film marketed as that of one in the genre, it has nearly failed in its basic ambition.
Lee's Grade: C-
Ranked #120 of 143 between The Scorpion King (#119) and Spy Kids 2 (#121) for 2002 movies.
Ranked #120 of 143 between The Scorpion King (#119) and Spy Kids 2 (#121) for 2002 movies.
Lee's Overall Grading: 3025 graded movies
| A | 0.4% | |
| B | 30.0% | |
| C | 61.7% | |
| D | 8.0% | |
| F | 0.0% |
