Nothing spoils an ocean cruise like a cable cutting across the dance floor, especially when people are actually dancing at the time. It abruptly changes the tempo from an elegant waltz to a crude slide. At least, for the top halves of their bodies. Such bluntness in the midst of elegance makes for a cool contrast. Indeed, Ghost Ship director Steve Beck likes it so much he uses the scene twice. As a sequence, it works, but that contrast infuses the whole movie, until we’re really not sure where it wants to go, elegant ghost story or out and out splatterfest.
It’s not that you go into a movie from Dark Castle Productions (The House On Haunted Hill, Th13teen Ghosts) expecting something Oscar-worthy. But with a name as naked as Ghost Ship, you at least deserve 80 minutes or so of fun.
From the beginning, the movie offers hope. Beck throws a curveball by starting in 1962 aboard the Italian ocean liner Antonia Graza. Amidst high sophistication on this “floating art palace,” a gorgeous lounge singer (Francesca Rettondini) croons in mink stole tones. But is there just the slightest glint of foreboding in her eyes? Outside on the lido deck, a bored young girl (Emily Browning) accepts the Captain’s invitation to dance. And then comes the slicing.
It’s gory, sure, but already the effect of people moving without realizing they’ve been separated has become old hat in horror movies. You know the scene: their eyes widen as it sinks in, and their bodies slowly slip apart. Beck copies himself from a similar scene in 13 Ghosts; at least in the earlier movie the slice was vertical, providing some novelty. Here it’s just quantity, as a good fifty people or so struggle to hold themselves together. Or put themselves back together.
Flashing forward to modern day, a salvage crew gets turned on to the empty hulk of the Antonia Graza drifting through the Bering Strait. Their tip comes from eager beaver Ferriman (Desmond Harrington), who insists on going with them to make sure they don’t cheat him out of his finder’s fee. The crew are pretty much non-descript, but cast for personalities to make up for the sparseness of written ones. Gabriel Byrne does a little more than collect a paycheck as Murphy (because this is the sort of movie where Irish guys are named Murphy), and Ghost Ship is better for his casting. Only a handful of living actors can answer the question, “you’ve seen this ship?” with “only in my dreams” and make it sound believable.
As a scruffy salvage guy named Dodge, Ron Eldard supposedly pines for Epps (real-life girlfriend Julianna Margulies), but we only know this because late in the film somebody accuses him of it. Maybe casting a couple was supposed to be enough. Only Isaiah Washington as Greer seems to be working much from script cues; Greer is about to get married, and the anticipation has clearly taken its toll. When the spooky stuff starts flying (well, more like limping), Greer gives in to it. Unfortunately, though the movie sets us up for clever consequences, it ignores the possibilities.
Because union rules now state that one creepy kid must appear in any horror movie made in the 21st Century, that bored little girl starts popping up when the crew reaches the ship. She’s really more sad than creepy, and serves as Epps’ guide to the horror rather than a threat. The Antonia Graza holds plenty of threats and the promise of malevolent spirits. And of course, the salvage crew starts getting picked off, in order of ethnicity (sorry, also due to union rules). But Ghost Ship has a lot of promise that ends up going nowhere.
Those ghosts, for example. Katie, the little girl ghost, shows us what really happened on that last night of the cruise, and that should mean a whole boatload of evil specters. But we actually only see one truly malevolent one from the events of 1962, and one crewmember comes back for a brief taunting. It’s the audience that gets taunted, because the movie never builds on that idea.
Nor the idea that Murphy, a recovering alcoholic, shouldn’t drink that ghostly scotch. Anyone who has seen or read The Shining knows it’s a bad idea. No, gang, I’m here to tell you: the bad idea is proving that really, when a ghost offers you a drink, it’s because he knows you need it. Byrne tries to play it for tension, but it dead-ends.
The real disappointment comes from realizing that this movie ends up having an interesting premise. You already know it’s a Voyage of the Damned, but there’s also a reason this salvage crew has to be onboard. Even its explanation goes nowhere, though, as if screenwriter Mark Hanlon (or the producers) decided that it was just too complicated for the average movie audience. There’s just enough to hint at something cool, but we’re left with something mundane. (And the movie breaks its own rule for the sake of a “shock” ending that will come as no shock to anybody who ever saw an episode of The Twilight Zone.)
Instead of suspense and payoff, Ghost Ship delivers blood. Literally, pools of it. And a couple of explosions for those who need them. If that’s what you look for in a horror movie, then you may be satisfied. But this movie could have been, should have been, more.
