Ghost Ship (2002)

Ghost Ship (2002)

Is it safe to come out now? Nobody got mad at me, so I guess it is… (Lowers flame shield)

WHAT IN THE NAME OF SWEET MERCIFUL POSEIDON IS THAT?!? (Raises flame shield again)

Sorry, I just got spooked solid by a spooky sailing skeleton. You’ll want to be ready if you venture further. Just to be safe, I’ll put some cute kittens here as a buffer. Consider this your one and only SPOOK WARNING. See the capitals? It's like I'm shouting this, so you have no excuse for not seeing it.

Now that you’re sufficiently cutened up, here’s today’s blog.

Spooky sailing skeletons send shivers down your spine!

Release Date: October 25, 2002

The film blows its load early with a flashback scene where partygoers on a cruise ship get sliced in half with a razor wire deployed by an unknown assailant, who seems to be a homicidal version of Billy Zane’s character in Titanic – in other words, Billy Zane’s character in Titanic.

In the present day, (or 2002 at least. It was present at the time the film was made, but now contemporary would be a better term) a crew of ocean salvagers are tipped off to the location of the now abandoned ship from the prologue by Ferryman, who is astonishingly appropriately named for his line of work. Only the respective casts of Horrid Henry and Ace Attorney have names that are more on the nose. The salvagers take Ferryman with them to the ship where they find that it contains spooky ghost girl Violet Baudelaire (The actress went on to play Violet Baudelaire in the film adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Seriously, look it up), a whole load of dead bodies in a locked room, and not cut in half at that, and most importantly, boxes full of gold (Bullion, not Aztec or Chocolate.) The crew plan to take the gold and go home, but their savviness counts for nothing when their boat is destroyed in an explosion, leaving the surviving crew with no choice but to repair the ghost ship and get home using it.

The crew start getting killed one by one until the ghost of the ship’s captain explains the backstory to the leader of the salvagers, who promptly goes mad and tries to kill the Final Girl when he starts being haunted by the ghost of the crew member killed in the explosion earlier. Ferryman knocks him out and locks him in the brig. Meanwhile, Violet Baudelaire explains the story to the Final Girl. It turns out Ferryman was behind it all, having taken the gold onto the ghost ship, convinced the crew to kill the passengers and then let their greed kill each other, thus trapping the souls of everyone on the ship until he has enough to send them all to Hell. Since then, he’s been luring more crews to the ghost ship to get the gold and killed them too. Fun fact, I saw this twist coming in the first five minutes as soon as the character’s name was given, but dismissed it fearing a repeat of 12 Rounds, where I anticipated an entire elaborate plot involving modern-day equivalents of the 12 labours of Hercules and the story of Persephone and Hades, then ended up disappointed when this didn’t happen, the film was far more straight-forward than that, and I had merely latched onto a meaningless background sign.

I sure hope somebody picks up the phone... 

Now that the jig is up, Ferryman quickly kills the rest of the crew, leaving the Final Girl for last. He tries to convince her to leave him alone, but she sacrifices herself to sink the ship and let the lost souls move on, though Violet Baudelaire thanks her by helping her escape safely. Adrift at sea, the Final Girl is found by a passing cruise ship, taken aboard and returned to dry land, but as she is loaded into an ambulance, she sees that not all the souls were saved. Ferryman reappears, loading the cursed gold onto the saviour ship with the help of the damned deceased salvagers. Effectively, the whole thing kicks off again, on a new ship with a more modern build and not rusty and decaying, meaning it’ll be much harder to blow up in the sequel that was never considered anyway so why am I even worrying about this. Nice job breaking it hero.

Disappointingly, Ghost Ship is not a scary film, and I say this as someone who is normally a great big sissy when it comes to horror films. Despite the ghost ship being suitably ominous and decayed (the set design is a comparative strength of the film), an extended sequence of the characters exploring the ship before things go bump in the night somehow doesn’t build tension, possibly because of the film’s short length (82 minutes, not including the credits). When they come (at around the 50 minute mark), the scares are pretty tame too, mostly relying on gore that quickly loses its effect. The origin of the ghost ship could have been terrifying, but it doesn’t dwell enough on the atrocities committed by the crew in their greed for the cursed gold, moving from one shot to the next too quickly for them to have much impact, and the ill-fitting rawk music that plays during the scene dilutes it further. On the plus side, there are no volume wrenching scare chords or obnoxious jump scares artificially telegraphing to the audience that this is the part where you’re supposed to be scared, which is much appreciated.

After the gruesome opening, gore hounds will be disappointed that there isn’t anything comparable to that in the rest of the film, possibly thanks to the small cast and no nameless extras to act as cannon fodder. The second flashback isn’t as elaborate despite having the prologue as part of it, and that was really the best opportunity to try topping it. The opening scene sets the bar high, but not in a good way, as everything else is disappointing in comparison.

On another note, the original script for the film sounds much more interesting and scary than the final product. The first half is largely the same, with the main changes coming in the second half. Ferryman and the supernatural stuff is mostly gone (Mostly, since Violet Baudelaire remains), and the crew instead fight among each other over the treasure, with each one going mad and plotting to kill the others so that they could have the gold for themselves. This version would have ended with the Final Girl again being the sole survivor, choosing to flee the sinking ship with Violet Baudelaire’s help. The captain (who survives longer in this version, instead of being the third to die, outlasted by Ferryman and the comic relief duo) would have taken the gold now that he was the only person who wanted it, but the extra weight meant he would have been too slow to escape and gone down with the ship. Essentially, it would have been The Shining at sea.

In conclusion, Ghost Ship is a little bit ship. You’re clever, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

3/10

You know what the worst part is? The spooky sailing skeleton is on the poster. It’s on the DVD box art. It’s even in the trailer. But at no point does it appear in the actual film. I got spooked solid by that bony buoyant bastard for nothing!