Ghost Ship (2002) Dir: Steve Beck

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When it came to watching this Steve Beck directed mystery horror, I approached it with mild interest, more than a genuine hope of entertainment. It is not considered to be anything close to a classic horror film, but I still found myself wanting to see it - call it a morbid curiosity, of sorts. I've seen my fair share of terrible horror films, so I didn't see why one more would be too much of a strain.

A shocking, though slightly comical, opening scene seemed to be encouraging, but, unfortunately, the rest of the film was nothing like it. On the contrary, it was all terribly dull and monotonous. The film looked terrible, even for its age. I just wanted to look away sometimes - it was just an ugly film.

The film didn't seem to understand what it was beyond its tacky horror exterior. The film lacked a consistency that could have helped it to become more watchable. This was typified by a very tonally bizarre montage about three quarters of the way through the film. The soundtrack was the biggest contributor to these tonal issues - it simply didn't work.

The story lacked cohesion or creativity, and was full of entirely bland and forgettable characters, none of which I cared about in the slightest. The film was neither scary nor entertaining - it bored me entirely. The ending was eye-rollingly tropy and predictable, and served as the rotten cherry on top of a fairly rotten film.

The pair of Julianna Margulies and Gabriel Byrne occasionally showed some adequacy of sorts in their leading roles, but I wasn't convinced by the majority of either of their performances. Margulies seemed to do far too much, and only really became noticeable in the final third of the film. I felt that Byrne had the opposite effect - he started slightly stronger and faded quickly.

The supporting cast failed to provide much in the way of substance or quality, try as they might. The likes of Desmond Harrington, Ron Eldard, Isaiah Washington, Karl Urban, and Emily Browning, all failed to impress me in the slightest. Watching this cast felt like watching a parody film at times. None of the acting felt as though it could be taken seriously.

Overall, even with my low expectations, I found myself extremely underwhelmed by this rather uninspired horror film. Like I implied at the top of this review, I wasn't exactly looking for a top-tier horror classic, but I was at least hoping for something watchable. This, unfortunately, barely reached that level. It was more tacky than anything else, which I consider a rather damming description.