Ghost Ship

What's the Plot?

The salvage crew of the "Arctic Warrior" are the best in their business Captain Murphy (Gabriel Bryne) and his crew Maureen Epps (Julianna Margulies), Greer (Isaiah Washington), Dodge (Ron Eldord), Munder (Karl Urdan), and Santos (Alex Dimitriades), have never failed in bringing back a vessel...for a hefty price. When approached by a pilot named Jack Ferriman (Desmond Herrington), who claims to have stumbled across a mysterious vessel adrift in the Bering Sea, most of the crew are hesitant but the lure of the big payoff sees them set sail. What they discover is the floating remains of the "Antonia Graza", a grand ocean liner that's been missing for over 40 years! Able to become millionaires with this find, they board her with plans to sail/tow her back to port. Except that the crew begin to feel that they are not alone...

Maureen Epps (Julianna Margulies) with visitor

If they can't unlock the ship's shocking past and bloodied secret, the crew of the "Artic Warrior" will never see land, or life again.

The Review

There's an argument that over time, audiences have become desensitized to horror, since there's really very little we can watch that we haven't seen before. Ghost Ship is a prime example for that argument. Horror, especially the Hollywood variety, has become unoriginal and tired, leaving the Japanese to corner the market with such films as Ring, Audition, and Battle Royale. Ghost Ship refuses to stray from the "haunted house" scenario and comes complete with creaking doors, flashes of mood enhancing lightening and a rain drenched night. Of course, being a horror movie, the predictability doesn't stop there. It's like watching and episode of Dad's Army, as you know exactly who's dead. Now, for a horror flick, that's a bit of a problem since any great build up of suspense can never be achieved.

Maureen Epps (Julianna Margulies)

Jack Ferriman (Desmond Herrington), Captain Murphy (Gabriel Bryne) and Mundar (Karl Urdan)

There's the guy who's going to get married when he gets back to the mainland - oh deary me! - the whining guy who just wants his "fair share of what's coming to him" - oh deary, deary me! - and then there's the other similarities to pervious horror movies. Margulies is essentially a Sigourney Weaver Aliens type figure who has more courage than all her male counterparts put together. One guy gets his own Poltergeist impersonation, with a sequence involving maggot riddle food. Plus, there's even a blatant rip-off of Titanic at the end of the movie. Even Stanley Kubrick's horror classic The Shining gets a look in when the dead crew and passengers of the Ghost Ship start to miraculously appear all over the place. Now all this may sound a little negative, but that's because the opening sequence of the film is actually quite good. Unusual, unexpected and downright gory, the events that "dispatch" most of the guest of the ocean liner back in 1962 are delightfully gross but, after that, it all goes downhill, big time.

All in all, it's another nail in the coffin for modern horror films, Ghost Ship should not really be your port of call.