Ghost Ship

PLOT (spoiler alert!!!):

In May 1962, dozens of wealthy passengers are dancing both in the ballroom and the deck of the Italian ocean liner, Antonia Graza, while an Italian woman (Francesca Rettondini) sings “Senza Fine.” On the deck, a young girl named Katie (Emily Browning), is sitting alone, until the Captain of the ship himself offers to dance with her. Elsewhere, a hand presses a lever that unravels a thin wire cord from a spool. The spool snaps and the wire slices across the dance floor like a blade, bisecting the dancers. Only Katie is spared, due to her height. The Captain’s face splits open at mouth level as the top of his head falls off and Katie screams in horror.

40 years later, a boat salvage crew—Cpt. Sean Murphy (Gabriel Byrne), Maureen Epps (Julianna Margulies), Greer (Isaiah Washington), Dodge (Ron Eldard), Munder (Karl Urban), and Santos (Alex Dimitriades)—is celebrating a recent success at a bar, when Jack Ferriman (Desmond Harrington), a Canadian weather service pilot, approaches them and says he has spotted a mysterious vessel running adrift in the Bering Sea. Because the ship is in international waters, it can be claimed by whomever is able to bring it to port.

The crew sets out on their ship, the Arctic Warrior, an ocean salvage tugboat. They discover the ship is the Antonia Graza, which mysteriously disappeared in 1962 and was believed to be lost at sea, as both the crew and the passengers were never heard from again. When they board the ship and prepare to tow it, they discover that it contains a large quantity of gold. However strange things begin to happen. Epps claims to have seen a little girl on the stairwell. The crew find a digital watch on the bridge and Greer claims to have heard a woman singing throughout the ship. Epps and Ferriman discover the corpses of another salvage crew. They decide to leave the ship but take the gold, but an invisible force opens a gas valve in the engine room and the Arctic Warrior explodes as the engine is started, killing Santos and leaving them stranded.

They attempt to fix the Antonia Graza and sail it back to land, but the crew members are picked off one by one. Greer meets Francesca, the singer who he heard, who seduces him and then leads him off a precipice to his death. Captain Murphy, after entering the Captains Cabin, comes across the ghost of the Antonia Graza’s Captain, who explains that they recovered the gold from a sinking cruiseship Lorelei, along with a sole survivor. He shows Murphy a picture of the survivor, who he is shocked to recognise. He rushes to tell the rest of the crew, but a supernatural force causes him to see everyone he meets as the burned ghost of Santos, causing the crew to think he has gone mad and lock him in the drained fish tank.

Meanwhile, Epps meets Katie, who reveals that the crew of Graza turned on the passengers and each other. The sole survivor of the Lorelei convinced the crew of the Graza to turn on the passengers in order to claim the gold. The crew killed all of the passengers, including Katie, but then turned on each other. The last officer, after killing his crew mates was shot by the singer, Francesca. Another man then joined Francesca in an embrace and walked away as a large hook swung into her face, killing her. The man is revealed (via photos Murphy received from the Graza’s Captain) as Jack Ferriman, who is actually a demonic spirit who masterminded the massacre in 1962 and may have done something similar on the Lorelei.

Epps deduces that Ferriman lured the salvage team to the Graza to repair the sinking ship, and that the best way to fight him is to sink it. She sets explosives, but is confronted by Ferriman, who has killed the last of her crew. Ferriman describes himself as a salvager of souls; collecting souls is his job, which he says he earned by a lifetime of sin. He explains that since Katie was a child and never committed a true sin, he can’t control her as he does with the evil ghosts. So long as the Antonia Graza remains afloat, he can continue to use it as a trap and keep his masters (and Satan) satisfied. After a brief struggle, Epps detonates the explosives and sinks the Graza. Katie helps Epps escape the rapidly sinking ship. She is left in the debris as the souls trapped on the ship ascend to heaven; Katie stops to thank her.

After drifting on the open sea for some time, Epps is found by a cruise ship and taken back to land. As she’s loaded into an ambulance, she sees the battered crates of gold being loaded onto the cruise ship by Ferriman and members that look like but are not her fallen crew members. Ferriman glares at her and carries on; she screams as the ambulance doors close.

REVIEW:

The other day, I was talking to one of my friends in the Navy, and it got me thinking about the horrors one would experience on a ship. Looking through my queue, I noticed Ghost Ship, and figured this would be a good flick to help with those thoughts. The real question, though, is whether or not it is worth the time.

What is this about?

Dispatched to recover a long-lost passenger ship found floating lifeless on the Bering Sea, the crew of the Arctic Warrior salvage tug soon becomes trapped inside the mysterious vessel — which they quickly realize is far from abandoned. But just who — or what — is on board remains to be seen.

What did I like?

Opening scene. I love the glitz and glamour of the 30s-50s. That was just a time when going out was an event not a chore as it is today. Throw in the beautiful and talented singers that were around back then and wow! That is exactly what we have in this opening scene, a gorgeous singer entertaining the audience full of people dancing, then they meet their gory demise, in what is probably the best scene of the entire film.

Soundtrack. I was pretty impressed with the selection of music chosen for this film’s soundtrack. For me, there is something that really works for horror films when that heavy metal/hard rock sound is there. The perfect tone, if you will. I guess Blade is responsible for my feelings on that, though. The only exception being the big band ballad sung in the opening scene.

What didn’t I like?

Crash and burn. After that great gory opening, there was nothing else about the film that came anywhere near as good. Basically, it became more of a thriller than a horror flick. Sure, there were some ghosts and stuff, but I felt that they could have upped the gore a bit. To have the opening be so bloody, and then not have anymore bloody murders of the same calibre for the rest of the film doesn’t quite seem to gel with it or vice versa.

Ship. For a ship that is full of ghosts, we only see a few of them. It seems to me that they would be doing all kinds of things to make their presence known/felt. I don’t get why they rest of the passengers couldn’t have made more of an impact on the preceding, good or bad, until the very end when they are seen again.

A review of Ghost Ship that I was reading earlier said that this if a good film, just not as good as you would think I hav e to agree with that sentiment. While this is not a bad flick, it could be better. There is a decent story here, but it is just doesn’t quite bring the audience in. So, do I recommend this? Well, as I said before, it isn’t necessarily a bad film, just not as good as you would think. With that being said, you could do much worse that this, so go ahead and give it a shot.

3 3/4 out of 5 stars