"Ghost Ship"

Like the sea itself, "Ghost Ship" is a churning mishmash of forces with the power to stymie anybody who endeavors upon it. From the moment the baffling Mary-Kay-meets-John-Waters titles appear, it�s tough to wade through the current of stilted characters, visuals straining to be eerie and cheap �Boo!� scares.

"Ghost Ship" is the story of a salvage tow that scours the Bering Sea for booty. A pilot (Desmond Harrington) approaches Capt. Murphy (Gabriel Byrne, who's usually very good) and his tight-knit crew, which includes Epps (Julianna Marguiles, of "ER" fame), to show them aerial photos of a huge ship he spotted while on patrol. They agree to investigate, cast off and literally bump into the Antonia Graza, an Italian luxury liner that disappeared 40 years earlier off the coast of Labrador. (Yeah, the Labrador way over by Greenland.)

On board, where Epps befriends the ghost of a little girl who reveals the Graza�s secret, they must contend with an evil force bent on their gory decimation.

Apart from the opening scene, which deserves kudos for an inventive kill sequence, "Ghost Ship" doesn�t offer up any frights, or even fromage, it can rightfully claim as its own. Instead, it serves up a smorgasbord harvested from "The Shining," "The Fog," "The Island," "The Abyss," "The Deep," "Virus," "Poltergeist," "Ghost," "The Devil�s Advocate" and "The Incredible Mr. Limpet." There are some good special effects, but Hollywood should know by now that special effects alone can�t carry an entire movie, especially one without an A-List cast.

In this day and age I suppose it�s Pollyannaish to expect anything else from a big-budget horror picture. As with rock�n�roll, most horror rips off its predecessors. The point is to do it with some subtlety, some tact, at least a grain of originality and not allow the idea take on water, list and sink into a familiar, charted ocean.