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A DVD Review of...
  
Images (C) Warner Bros., 2002 |
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Marguiles, Desmond Harrington, Ron Eldard, Alex Dimitriades
Synopsis: 1962. The Italian passenger liner Antonia Graza is a symbol of post-war opulent luxury, its hundreds of rich passengers dance the night away as they sail along with nary a care in the world. Then without a trace, the ship vanishes and no sign of it is ever seen again until... 2002. In a port somewhere in Alaska, the crew of the salvage tug Arctic Warrior are offered a job by a pilot - the young man has spotted a large and seemingly abandoned ship out in a remote region of the Bering Sea. After some reluctance they set out and soon come across the eerie remains of the Antonia Graza - the once grand cruise liner is now a rusted hulk, seaworthy and adrift but why has it suddenly reappeared? Forced to leave their own boat behind, the crew must figure out how to sail the ship back to port - but the dead inhabitants are not at rest and its up to the first officer Epps to unlock the secret of what horrific events happened the night of its disappearance. As each one of the salvage crew start dying in gruesome fashion, only she and a little girl who has long since departed this world can stop the malevolent presence on board out to fill his quota of souls to carry off into the darkness once and for all..
Film Review: Despite an admittedly cool concept and setting, "Ghost Ship" is sadly a failed spook house flick along a very similar (though somewhat better) vein as Dark Castle's previous effort "Thirteen Ghosts". Admittedly unlike that effort, 'Ghost' at least seems to have a script (or a semblance of one) and its characters are certainly more distinct and likable than Tony Shaloub and company. However it takes quite a while to get going and doesn't have that initial effective sense of dread that the crap-tacular "Virus" had (though the second half of 'Ghost' is infinitely better).
The location is quite spectacular - the various rotting sets are drenched in watery light reflections, the locations such as a pool and a large ballroom look great although there's too many 'corridor' scenes which makes it seem cheap at times. The performances are standard for this fare - Byrne and Marguiles prove somewhat ordinary, Eldard & the other crewmates are also let downs. On the other hand Desmond Harrington is quite solid in a nice guy role and the various ghosts (esp. the little girl) are quite well portrayed.
Pacing is off though - after a quite shocking opening scene, for the first 50 minutes or so there's an initial build-up to try and establish the characters and give them a background which fails quite miserably. However with a little over half an hour ago when the group becomes trapped and they have to investigate the mystery of what happened things really start to pick up with some good jumps and mystery twists. Editing is really quite awful though with lots of utterly unneeded jumps and quite visible gaps in the story. Combined with one of the worst overblown scores I've heard in ages I have to wonder what happened?
An otherwise creepy little thriller which could've been effective has become another crappy MTV attempt at horror. The original script for this was apparently a much creepier "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" style thriller focusing more on insanity than body count - now THAT is a film I'd like to see. This on the other hand sadly feels like "Thirteen Ghosts" - good concept but poorly executed. Could have been so much more. - Garth Franklin
"Ghost Ship"
DVD Details In Brief (Region 1)
Rating: R
Runtime: 91mins
Versions: 16:9 Enhanced Widescreen, 4:3 Letterboxed
Aspect Ratio: 1.85: 1
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Language & Sub-Titles: English, Spanish, French
Documentaries: On-Set Featurette, Three Vignettes
Clips: Trailer, Music Video
Other: Secret of Antonia Graza Puzzle, Filmographies
Region 1 vs. Region 4: No R4 Available |
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DVD Review: After a so-so turn at the box-office last Halloween, the spook fest comes to DVD
with a decent albeit not so great disc, though that comment doesn't apply to the rather awesome old-fashioned 3D packaging. The transfer is fine with Warners giving us excellent quality video and audio. The picture is perfectly smooth with a nice amount of detail (albeit somewhat soft at times), rich colours, and no grain or aliasing visible. The surround sound track is also made of excellent use with a huge range, aggressive directional effects and perfectly legible dialogue. The score still sounds horrible, but horrible in a good quality way. No commentary track it seems.
Extras wise there's several featurettes for our perusal. "Max on Set: Ghost Ship" is a 14-minute piece with standard doco interviews of all the key cast & crew such as Director Steve Beck, Producer Joel Silver & Gil Adler, and actors like Julianna Marguiles, Gabriel Byrne and Karl Urban. Its standard short soundbites with "you'll be scared" repeated a lot - no real insights at all and whilst the clips are fun, they're also way too revealing. "Secrets of the Antonia Graza" is a crappy puzzle game leading to four further short featurettes which never really show anything so its ultimately a waste. Dwayne's "Not Falling" music video is here albeit a video which basically spoils the entire film through use of fast cut clips, and combines it to an utterly awful techno song.
There's three five minute featurettes the best being "Designing Ghost Ship" - a 5-minute piece about the set construction and the Andrea Dorea-esque style sets including the engine room, the bridge and the massive ballroom. Little facts pop in such as the paintings are inspired by a 19th century engraver, whilst production designer Grace Walker shows off a lot of his work. "A Closer Look at the Gore" has the KNB guys showing off the horror makeup FX with great video of random fake body parts strewn around the floor. "Visual FX" talks with Aussie FX house Photon who speak about beauty shots of the ship. Each of these three pieces is cut to somewhat quirky music, split screen boxes and text. Finally there's filmographies and the trailer. Not a great set or film but horror fans should check out. - Garth Franklin
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