As a candidate for scary-movie honors, this one hasn't a ghost of a chance.
"Ghost Ship" is not at all deficient in production values and is not quite as obscenely insulting as 2002's "FearDotCom," but it never reaches anywhere near the stylish heights of its best contemporary, "The Ring," either. People in "Ghost Ship" fall ten feet onto hard metal floors and get up without a scratch; walkie-talkies fail to operate when they're most needed; people who see ghosts never mention them to anyone else; and raucous music follows everyone everywhere. Indeed, you'll find all the typical tomfoolery of bad fright flicks here. Fact is, as far as dumb horror films go, this one ranks among the dumbest, which is perhaps all a viewer wants on occasion, so who's to complain? (Except me, that is, because it's the critic's job to be mean and nasty and get people annoyed at them for not liking everything they do.)
Video:
As we anticipated from the people who brought us "The House on Haunted Hill" and "Thir13en Ghosts," the picture quality in "Ghost Ship" is generally dark and murky, with a modicum of soft grain in evidence. With most scenes shot in low light, grain is always going to be a clear and present danger, and practically everything in "Ghost Ship" is shot in low or filtered light. Object delineation is average, despite the screen size being a 1.74:1 anamorphic ratio. Colors are pretty good, nonetheless, considering the surrounding gloom, although faces come off a little more pale than I would have imagined to see on veteran seafarers.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio reproduction is somewhat better than the video quality. In fact, the surround sound is as good as that from any new action thriller. Noises like thunder, rain, waves, dripping water, creaking hulls, and falling debris come at the listener from all sides with realistic efficiency. The deep bass gets a bit annoying after a while, I suppose, but it, too, is a must in any film with pretensions to supernatural goings on. Why do ghosts always have to be so noisy?
Extras:
There's a sizable selection of extras included on the disc, adding up to a fairly ordinary viewing experience. There's a brief, fifteen-minute made-for-TV featurette, "Max on the Set: Ghost Ship," that is unexceptional. There are three more shorter featurettes, one on special effects called "A Closer Look at the Gore," a second on production design called "Designing the Ghost Ship," and a third on visual effects. There's a puzzle game, "Secrets of the Antonia Graza," which if unlocked reveals four fictional stories that complement the film. And there's a music video, "Not Falling," by Mudvayne. The bonus package concludes with twenty-eight scene selections; a widescreen theatrical trailer; English and French spoken languages; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles. The puzzle game interested me the most but only for a few minutes, and it wasn't anything I'd go back to.
Parting Shots:
These derivative, poorly implemented horror films always leave audiences with the same questions. Like, why do some ghosts have corporal bodies while others don't? And why are most ghosts evil? Why do the souls of otherwise normal, everyday people in these stories turn to the dark side once they're dead? In fairness, the script tries to answer these last two questions and in addition attempts to shed new light on them, but it takes a lot of endurance to care enough to reach the answers.
With "Ghost Ship" our suspension of disbelief is stretched far beyond our bounds of willingness. Little or nothing makes any rational or internal sense, except to say that the Devil made the bad guys do it. Or something like that. Expect a lot of screams, shrieks, dark corridors, cheap frights, gory mayhem, and grisly deaths. Even the ending is silly. As a candidate for scary-movie honors, this one hasn't a ghost of a chance.
Video:
As we anticipated from the people who brought us "The House on Haunted Hill" and "Thir13en Ghosts," the picture quality in "Ghost Ship" is generally dark and murky, with a modicum of soft grain in evidence. With most scenes shot in low light, grain is always going to be a clear and present danger, and practically everything in "Ghost Ship" is shot in low or filtered light. Object delineation is average, despite the screen size being a 1.74:1 anamorphic ratio. Colors are pretty good, nonetheless, considering the surrounding gloom, although faces come off a little more pale than I would have imagined to see on veteran seafarers.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio reproduction is somewhat better than the video quality. In fact, the surround sound is as good as that from any new action thriller. Noises like thunder, rain, waves, dripping water, creaking hulls, and falling debris come at the listener from all sides with realistic efficiency. The deep bass gets a bit annoying after a while, I suppose, but it, too, is a must in any film with pretensions to supernatural goings on. Why do ghosts always have to be so noisy?
Extras:
There's a sizable selection of extras included on the disc, adding up to a fairly ordinary viewing experience. There's a brief, fifteen-minute made-for-TV featurette, "Max on the Set: Ghost Ship," that is unexceptional. There are three more shorter featurettes, one on special effects called "A Closer Look at the Gore," a second on production design called "Designing the Ghost Ship," and a third on visual effects. There's a puzzle game, "Secrets of the Antonia Graza," which if unlocked reveals four fictional stories that complement the film. And there's a music video, "Not Falling," by Mudvayne. The bonus package concludes with twenty-eight scene selections; a widescreen theatrical trailer; English and French spoken languages; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles. The puzzle game interested me the most but only for a few minutes, and it wasn't anything I'd go back to.
Parting Shots:
These derivative, poorly implemented horror films always leave audiences with the same questions. Like, why do some ghosts have corporal bodies while others don't? And why are most ghosts evil? Why do the souls of otherwise normal, everyday people in these stories turn to the dark side once they're dead? In fairness, the script tries to answer these last two questions and in addition attempts to shed new light on them, but it takes a lot of endurance to care enough to reach the answers.
With "Ghost Ship" our suspension of disbelief is stretched far beyond our bounds of willingness. Little or nothing makes any rational or internal sense, except to say that the Devil made the bad guys do it. Or something like that. Expect a lot of screams, shrieks, dark corridors, cheap frights, gory mayhem, and grisly deaths. Even the ending is silly. As a candidate for scary-movie honors, this one hasn't a ghost of a chance.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]10765[/release]