Movie Review #4

Ghost Ship:

SHOCK VALUE: 24 of 33
QUEASINESS: 24 of 33
SUSPENSE: 27 of 34
TOTAL SCARE: 75 of 100

A chilling movie about a salvage crew that is tempted into finding an old/abandoned ship that might be worth some money. While on the ship they discover 1) Gold that is worth more than the boat itself and 2) a bunch of ghosts. The ghosts begin killing them and it turns out that the guy who brought the crew here is also a ghost who is responsible for “collecting souls”. While its a familiar formula there are a few good twists. The opening scene is very dramatic – taking place just when the original crew was killed. Later in the movie you find out there's a lot more to it – the killing of the crew was even more planned out – from poisonings to stabbings and hangings this crew was murdered for the cargo they carried. The killers then turned on themselves...

I think this ghost story is a little scarier than many others because the ghosts have some power – they aren't just there to scare people (for example – they are able to blow up the tugboat that the salvage crew brought with them, cutting off their only escape). It's pretty strange how the last survivor is saved – a random boat picks her up (supposedly they were in the middle of nowhere, in international waters...and they never had time to send out the distress signal. Perhaps her being saved had something to do with the one good ghost – an innocent child that helped her along the way.) Anyway, it was a little too easy – but then, of course we see that the villain wasn't finished after all, and he has enlisted her former crew to help him with his continuing mission...

I remember when I first saw this movie I thought it was very gory – but I couldn't give it too high of a gore-rating because now-a-days there is so much more of it. I might need to come back and change this, after all I did watch the tv version...