Note: Novemeber, due to being NANO, is going to have more reviews and the like and less research intensive essays. December will have us back to normal business with a variety of posts returning.
Title: Ghost Ship
Release Date: October 25, 2002
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Rating:R
Director: Steve Beck
Ghost Ship is, as the title suggests, a ghost story. The story starts with an ill fated cruise ship from Italy in the 1960s. Everyone on board dies, but the ship disappears and for decades people went searching for it. However, no one seems to have found it, and there is evidence that people have disappeared after locating it.
The main character, though its not clear at first, is Epps (Julianna Margulies), one member of a team of ship reclimators. She and her crew (led by Murphy(Gabriel Byrne)) are hired to patch up a ship that supposedly will have a big pay out. However once on the ship and realising it was a missing cruiser from the 1960s, the team quickly finds there is nothing easy about this job. Epps is the first to see a ghost, but they are all finding strange things happening, from hearing music playing in empty rooms, to finding corpses, to their ship blowing up.
I feel this movie had potential. It was enjoyable, and I may watch it again someday but I couldn’t help but feel a bit let down by the ending. Of course I tend to enjoy fantasy more than horror, so perhaps I am biased. While Ghosts tend to lend themselves towards Fantasy as well, this movie is intended to be horror. I enjoyed the scenes between Epps and Katie (Emily Browning) the young girl who is trapped as a ghost on the ship. The Italian Singer doesn’t really make a good impression (but neither does Greer. When you watching the movie, you’ll understand). Some of the deaths make sense, but a few are just random. Perhaps I missed a scene.
It has a interesting cast. It reunites Julianna Margulies with her ER boyfriend who plays Dodge ( Ron Eldard). Isaiah Washington (Burke from Graces Anatomy fame) plays Greer, the ship pilot. Also featured is Karl Urban, who is a favorite actor of mine as Munder. Emily Browning has been in several movies that I remembered but I didn’t quite remember her. So the cast is a big sell.
But as I said, while I found the movie enjoyable, and the cast a good choice of people, I think the ending was off for me.
Final Grade: B
Sokorra Lewis 