Ghost Ship | ||||||
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If you even begin to take this film seriously it will let you down horribly! It starts with a scene of unbelievable grisliness and then plays with every cliche of the genre as it progresses, right down to boneheaded lines of dialog that are obvious included to make us laugh. Director Beck (who also made 13 Ghosts) really keeps things moving, spending the first half of the film setting up the atmosphere, showing us the ship and its ghostly passengers (little girl Browning, chanteuse Rettondini, captain Ruggiero), then suddenly dispatching each character with over-the-top slasher-film gruesomeness. The cast gamely goes along with this combination of action movie heroics and ghost movie terror, injecting humour into every scene to keep us off balance. And it works, because the characters are actually intriguing and the "mystery" plot is preposterous and clever at the same time. It's refreshing to watch a horror film that's this unpretentious. It's not afraid to be profoundly cheesy ... and it actually unsettles us with hideous grisliness rather than mere noises on the soundtrack.
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dir Steve Beck scr Mark Hanlon, John Pogue with Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington, Isaiah Washington, Karl Urban, Alex Dimitriades, Emily Browning, Francesca Rettondini, Robert Ruggiero, Boris Brkic, Iain Gardiner release US 25.Oct.02; UK 24.Jan.03 Warners 02/US 1h31 ![]() Something's fishy! Epps (Margulies) shows the boys what she's found (Eldard, Urban, Harrington, Byrne) ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
![]() ![]() "Brilliant movie. Realistic special effects, tons of plot twists and a pretty nifty storyline. Make a change from haunted house movies." --Leanne, England 4.Apr.03 | ||||||
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