Ghost Ship opens with a shipload of people getting bisected and ends with a profoundly unsatisfying explosion/sinking sequence that shows that five years of technological advancements was not enough to bridge the gap between a $20 million movie and James Cameron’s ten times more expensive Titanic. And, you know, right now, where I’m at in my life, that’s enough. Steve Beck wasn’t trying to be the next James Cameron, he just a guy who liked naked lady ghosts.
Captain Sean Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) leads a motley crew of TV stars aboard the salvage tug Arctic Warrior. They are: Epps (Julianna Margulies, post-ER), Dodge (Ron Eldard, who played one of Margulies’ love interests on ER and was with her in real life at this time), Munder (Karl Urban, months away from his first Lord of the Rings appearance he was best known at this time for Xena), Greer (another TV doctor, noted homophobe Isaiah Washington from Grey’s Anatomy), and Santos (Alex Dimitriades, The Slap). Speaking of James Cameron, what is this Aliens? I mean, who names characters like this? Anyway, while celebrating their latest job, Murphy and the rest are approached by weather service pilot Jack Ferriman (Desmond Harrington, Dexter‘s Quinn) who has spotted a massive vessel adrift in the Bering Strait. Maritime law says whoever brings it to port can claim it, so Jack reveals its location in exchange for a share of any profits.
Not much later, the Arctic Warrior rams into the mysterious ship and Murphy realizes it’s the MS Antonia Graza, an Italian ocean liner than disappeared without a trace 40 years ago. On board, and after some forgettable supernatural happenings, the crew find hundreds of gold bars in the cargo hold, a score that will make them all set for life. Since the Antonia Graza is sinking, they wisely decide to take the gold and leave as soon as possible. While Santos is getting the tug ready, an invisible force sabotages them with a gas leak, causing an explosion that injures Greer and kills Santos. Now these salvagers only have one choice: repair the Antonia Graza and sail it back to port or die.
Ghost Ship‘s opening scene is one of those things that has to be seen to be believed. An entire dance floor of people is cut in half by a metal cable and then slowly fall apart, like how people die in samurai movies. Immediately it’s followed by a goofy, action movie-esque scene where Epps disobeys orders to try to salvage a ship that’s rapidly sinking. It’s such a fun, over-the-top start that I was very excited for how Ghost Ship could possibly top that by the end of the movie. And it just didn’t. Aside from a fun montage about the why those people got cut in half, the rest of this movie is pretty boring. The final confrontation doesn’t make a lot of sense and it was clearly banking on spectacle, rather than creativity, which I’m guessing didn’t work out well for them 23 years ago and definitely doesn’t work now.
I chose to write about this movie because I was interested in tracing Robert Zemeckis’ foray into horror in the 2000s. This venture actually predates What Lies Beneath with the founding of Dark Castle Entertainment in 1998, named in honor of William Castle. Ghost Ship was their third film, and their first original, non-William Castle-based movie. Although they would continue to make Castle and non-Castle remakes, like House of Wax, somewhere along the way Dark Castle Entertainment became more than just a specialty horror label. They started making movies like Unknown starring Liam Neeson and Shane Black’s The Nice Guys. But the important thing is they have survived, and presumably kept making money for Zemeckis. They even had a movie come out this month, Shell, that movie that looks like The Substance with Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson. Good for you, Dark Castle Entertainment, keep on trying your best.