Reviewed By-Chris Alexander
Starring Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Marguilles
Directed by Steve Beck
Dark Castle/Warner Home Video

Ghost Ship is C horror machine Dark Castle's first William Castle -free feature, the first being the sorta good House on haunted Hill, the second being the sorta bad Thir13een Ghosts. Ghost Ship fits uncomfortably in between, a film that starts SO strongly, it breaks your heart to see it sink.- and make no mistake, this sucker sinks.... like soggy Boo Berry at the bottom of the bowl! If you haven't experienced the near brilliant first 10 minutes of this film, that's unfortunate- because I fully intend on spoiling them for you:

After the requisite logos flash, we open on a luxury ocean liner..kitchy lounge music tinkling in the background as bubbly pink fonts let us know that we're watching -tada- "Ghost Ship". The scene then switches to the ship's deck, where a lavish ball is in progress. people dance, laugh, a comely chanteuse croons some Italian love song and the band plays on....and then a too tight sail wire whips loose and rips it's way across the dance floor. There's a moment of stunned silence before the unfortunate hoi polloy start to literally crack, splitting and sliding into messy, bloody chunks. Men bid farewell to limbs and women scramble in vain to keep their intestines intact, reaching tragically for their lost lower halves. It's one of the most stunningly gruesome openings for any horror film I've seen let alone a mainstream multiplex popcorn one.

   

Then we sloppily fast forward to the here and now, where we meet a bunch of boring search and rescue monkeys led by paycheck collecting Irishman Gabriel Byrne. The waterlogged fools take a mission offered to them by a blandly handsome whimp-to retrieve the remains of lost ocean liner The Antonia Graza. Once on board, the greedy crew begin to experience supernatural phenomena and before you can say redrum, they're up to their wangs in spooks.

Ghost Ship does boast one more effective sequence near the final third, a gory flashback from the point of view of a white dress wearing little girl phantom (memo to Warner Bros. STOP RIPPING OFF BAVA!). With it's orgy of violence and blaring industro metal accompaniment, the scene is certainly visceral but jarring...it simply doesn't belong in this movie. A bunch of heavily edited bloodless deaths are thrown in for bad measure before the movie literally blows up, with an absolutely groan inducing aqua dead climax that'll leave red palm marks on your forehead.

Warner Bros. anamorphic widescreen release doesn't really improve matters, although the menu is kinda cool and a making of doc isn't as dull as it ought to be.

Whatever it's considerable faults, Ghost Ship is worth a look on a slow night, if only for that killer opening. But seeing as I've ruined even that small pleasure for you, perhaps you should save your 5 bucks and rent an adult film instead. On the whole, there's far more spurting fluids in an average porn flick anyway.