Neville
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
Karma: 142
Posts: 3050
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« on: December 16, 2002, 11:42:33 AM » |
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First things first, I feel I have to give credit where credit is due: despite its low quality, I have to admit that "Ghost Ship" is one of the most entertaining films I have seen this season. Director Steve Beck ("13 ghosts") does his best with the visuals and the atmosphere, and the acting is quite competent, as one may expect from a cast including ER Julianna Margulies and Gabriel Byrne.
And now the hatchett job: This film sucks big time, and all the blame is to be put in the Dark Castle studio, for producing poor horror movies that could become, with just a little effort, quite decent movies, and to whoever wrote the damn script. The story is quite simple: a crew specialised in ship rescue founds a vessel in arctic waters that misteriously dissappeared during the 60s, and as soon as they set their feet on the main deck all sort of strange things start to happen.
As I said, Steve Beck's job is quite decent, and the film is OK when all he has to do is keep the eerie atmosphere and exploit what little surprises the script has to offer, but when it comes the time for the climax and for providing key explanations, the film does not only fail miserably, but also becomes one of the dumbest things I have ever witnessed. It is not only that the story ultimately goes to hell, it is also the small details: we are told that the whole thing takes place in arctic waters, for no good reason, yet everybody swims in the ice cold waters (sometimes for days!) without the slighest trace of freezing. These could have been avoided simply by changing the setting, but it looks nobody thought of it. And those who criticise "Event Horizon" should really take a look at this one. At least to see that things can be done, indeed, even worse.
Things I learned enduring this flick:
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Note: I only learned two things with this, and the truth is that I knew them beforehand, so I guess I could have saved my five bucks.
1) I'm madly in love with Julianna Margulies.
2) Dark Castle flicks suck.
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