There isn’t too much I can really say about Ghost Ship. The movie’s trailer was fun, and I thought the film had potential. After all – Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver hadn’t done too badly with the whole “Tales from the Crypt” thing, and their Dark Castle Entertainment company had put out rather entertaining films so far, with House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts. So I went into the film (with Rawson in tow) expecting something at least relatively entertaining. Well, with the exception of the opening title sequence (very retro!) and the fact the movie was blessedly short (about 90 minutes), there wasn’t much there.
Every time the film had a chance to do something unique and scary, it fell into cliché. I mean, it got to the point of a bore-fest. And there really wasn’t anything scary about it at all. Deep Rising took the idea to a much more enjoyable level (and then went overboard, if you’ll pardon the pun). I’m not even going to bother pointing out the flaws here, there isn’t enough time in the day. But the set design was very cool (I mean, it’s not easy to make things look old and ruined), the visual effect of the “time reversal shot” was pretty snazzy, and John Frizzell’s score wasn’t too bad – kinda enjoyable, even. Still, my advice this Halloween, if you want to see something scary, see The Ring. Or, Swept Away. Either way, you’ll have trouble sleeping.