#28. "Ghost Ship" (2002, Beck)
By Eivind Langdal
15th December 2009

Ah, the big budget horror film. We don’t really see a lot of them, do we? So I guess the time is right to create some dialogue about that subject, then. Well, this review is going to talk about it, but I guess it’s not going to be as much a dialogue as it’s going to be a monologue. Now, enough jokes, let’s get serious. When we talk about budgets in horror movies, most people’s minds will race to The Blair Witch Project and its minimal amount of dollars. A lot of people will probably also point out that the film also made quite a lot of money too. And it’s not just that one. Horror films have been the demon dogs of cinema for a long time, and many directors in the genre have had to have made due with limited budgets (with both successful and unsuccessful results).

But what about the few horror films that actually have a sizable budget? What about those that have some names that normal people have heard of? Like, say, Ghost Ship? Produced by Joel Silver (The Matrix) and Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) and starring such actors as Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects, Miller’s Crossing), Julianna Margulies (Scrubs, The Sopranos), Isaiah Washington (Grey’s Anatomy) and Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings), it seems like the kind of film that could have dragged the horror genre up from the mud and into the light of day. If it was any good, that is.

Oh yes, good. It’s kind of important that a film is good if it’s going to accomplish anything, right? Well, I guess that means that Ghost Ship doesn’t accomplish a lot, because, and let’s not beat around the bush here, it isn’t very good. Occasionally, it does provide some nice shocks, and it comes close to creating some tension here and there, but ultimately, it’s not very scary, and it’s not really that entertaining either. It does have a great cover though.

The plot sees a salvage crew get a tip about a boat that is floating on the Bering Sea without any people on board. Though they have the initial predictable doubt about whether it’s any good idea to accept the gig, they eventually find the temptation to be too large, and so they cave in. The film’s prologue explains why there are no people on the boat (I won’t reveal it here, as its more fun to see it without knowing what’s going to happen). The prologue has been rightfully praises by most people, and it’s sad that the rest of the movie can’t manage to keep up its elegant mix of genres and its unpredictable creativity. Anyway, once the salvage crew reaches the ship, the film plods along in a recipe-like fashion that is so by-the-numbers it’s practically a calculator. Without, you know, the ability to do advanced thinking and shit.

As you might have guessed from the fact that the film is named Ghost Ship, there are ghosts on the ship. One of them is a little girl that holds some information about what actually happened on the boat. She is the nice one. The others: not so much. So, the crew gathers together and never leaves each other out of sight. No wait, that was another film. Well, once it becomes apparent that venturing out alone in the ship, they stay together, right? No, that too was another film. I am reminded of something Mark Wahlberg said in The Departed: “I am the guy doing my job, you’re the other guy”. Ghost Ship is the other guy.

So maybe the horror genre is still in the mud then. But is that really such a bad thing? Shouldn’t horror films get dirty? Shouldn’t they come home to their mothers with clothes and a grumpy mood? I think so. So maybe the failure of Ghost Ship is not such a bad thing after all. Does this mean a horror film is the ultimate anti-capitalist? Okay, so maybe I’m clutching at straws now.