Ghost Ship (2002)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Just perfect...

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Credit where credit is due. The concept of this film: a salvage crew are hired to recover a 40 year old lost Italian cruise ship that mysteriously disappeared. Had this this film been a psychological horror, it would have been better.Unfortunately, this film has been made like a typical horror with clichéd characters, bad acting and poor dialogue. The main actor Julianna Margulies even admitted later on she agreed to be in this movie because of the original script and was disappointed when she arrived she was going to act out a completely different script. This does not surprise me, there are some elements of good. One example is Gabriel Byrne's character is a recovering alcoholic. We are told that he doesn't drink in a bar scene early on and he stops himself from drinking whiskey (I think it was whiskey anyway) on board the ship only to drink some after the loss of a crew member. It's a shame that this was not developed as it would have given the character depth.Another good element was the relationship between Murphy (Gabriel Byrnes) and Epps (Julianna Margulies). This too is very undeveloped. The relationship between the characters were undeveloped at the cost of trying to make this film more popular. A terrible shame as this would have let the audience develop a bond with the characters rather than a typical horror where there is usually a game of seeing who's next to be slaughtered.As for the supernatural elements, the villain's main goal is to collect souls, so why couldn't he have killed them off a lot sooner? A psychological horror would have made this film a lot more interesting and believable. At most the supernatural should have been implied. Having all "supernatural" encounters have a rational (i.e. hallucination) or supernatural explanation leaving the audience to decide for themselves is also preferable. Overall, I would only recommend this film in the sense that it's interesting from speculation perspective.

A tugboat crew boards a derelict liner with a view to salvage. Unfortunately, the liner is cursed, which does not bode well for the future of the shipmates.This is a "last man standing" (or should that be "last man floating"?) horror with a very atmospheric location in the derelict, decaying liner. There is a distinct sense of production value, some good names in the cast (with a distinct "before they were famous" element for some of them), an effective enough story for what the film is, and a fair number of gruesome moments, mostly done quite well.I liked the ending (both bits of it), although it won't please everyone.

This ghost movie begins with the brutal and sudden death for passengers of an ocean-liner, a gripping scene that starts the movie off with much intrigue. It then leads to the present day where a salvage crew discovers the long-lost ship in a remote region of the Bering Sea. As they begin to tow it back to land, paranormal events soon happen to them.The story's plot has some creepy and hair-raising moments you've come to expect from ghost/horror movies, and the story takes a turn when the apparition of the young girl reveals herself to the salvage crew and foretells the dark and brutal history of the passengers and crew of the ship. It then all leads to a race for survival for the salvage crew.I thought, though, that the movie's latter half is just a lot of running around and people trying to survive ***spoiler ahead*** the main, evil ghost named Ferriman (Desmond Harrington), who uses gold on the ship as bait to get the crew and passengers, from the beginning of the movie, to turn on each other, resulting in their untimely deaths. This deviates from any surprises or plots twists in the film, all leading to a pretty predictable outcome. However, I thought the ending scene was confusing and leaves a cliffhanger.Overall, it's an action-packed movie with OK acting, but with limited suspense towards the latter half of the movie.Grade C

The film commences with (almost) an entire complement of passengers and crew on a 1960s cruise ship being sliced in half by a cable. It's dramatic and horrible. Then we switch to the 'present day' where things slow down.'The best damn salvage crew in the business' is led by Captain Sean Murphy (an Irishman convincingly played by Gabriel Byrne) and consists of Maureen Epps (the lovely Julianna Margulies), Dodge (Ron Eldard), Munder (Karl Urban), Greer (Isaiah Washington), and Santos (Alex Dimitriades). We get to know them well over the next few days.A Canadian Air Force Pilot, Jack Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) approaches them with pictures of an ocean liner which he spotted and convinces the crew to take a look at the ship, and take him with them. They discover that the ship is holed and sinking. They have three days to repair it and tow it.However, once on the ship strange things happen. Munder falls through a floor, Epps sees the ghost of a little girl (Emily Browning), Greer is seduced by the voice of the dead (and dead gorgeous) Italian singer (Francesca Rettondini).Steve Beck does a superb job as Director in keeping the suspense up. What is going to be behind the next door? Behind one door is millions of dollars worth of gold! After the crew's own boat mysteriously explodes, they are left to fend for themselves on the cruise ship as the spooky events escalate. And the plot weaves its way towards its conclusion.The movie is genuinely horrific with great special effects. The actors are all good. Why is this rated so low? I'm knocking a couple of points off for that fast-motion scene where all the plot points are revealed in rapid succession to a background of pumping beat music. But it's still worth eight.