Ghost Ship (film)
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- For legendary and actual sea vessels, see ghost ship.
| Ghost Ship | |
|---|---|
 A promotional film poster for Ghost Ship. |
|
| Directed by | Steve Beck |
| Produced by | Gilbert Adler Steve Richards Bruce Berman |
| Written by | Mark Hanlon John Pogue |
| Starring | Gabriel Byrne Julianna Margulies Desmond Harrington Ron Eldard Karl Urban Emily Browning |
| Music by | John Frizzell Chad Gray Micha Liberman Alec Wilder |
| Cinematography | Alec Wilder |
| Editing by | Roger Barton |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | October 25, 2002 (USA) |
| Running time | 91 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $35,000,000 [est.] |
| Gross revenue | $30,079,316 (USA) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Ghost Ship (2002) is a horror movie, directed by Steve Beck. The fictional ship Antonia Graza featured in the movie is based on a real life Italian cruise ship, the SS Andrea Doria, which sank in 1956 after colliding with another liner near Nantucket, Massachusetts. The film grossed a total of $30,113,491 in the U.S. Box Office and stars Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies and Emily Browning.
Tagline: Sea Evil
Contents |
[edit] Plot
[edit] Past - opening sequence
The film opens aboard an Italian ocean liner, the Antonia Graza, in the early '60s. Dozens of wealthy passengers enjoy dancing in the ship's luxurious ballroom. Away from the party in an outer room, a gloved hand pulls a switch that unravels a thin wire cord from a hidden spool.
Suddenly, the spool snaps and the wire slices across the deck like a blade, bisecting the dancers. A number of them remain alive for several seconds before grasping that they have been cut in half. Only little Katie, dancing with the ship's Captain, is being spared, thanks to her shortness. Seeing the fate of the other dancers, she looks up at the Captain's face. He looks back at her sorrowfully, as his face splits open at mouth level and the top of his head falls off. Katie then screams, the view from the outside of the ship zooms down underwater, and the film cuts to the present day.
[edit] Present
A small team of salvage specialists are retrieving a sinking ship in the open ocean. They bring the ship into port and receive its salvage value from the authorities. While celebrating their success at a bar, Jack Ferriman, a Canadian Air Force pilot, approaches them and says he has spotted a mysterious vessel running adrift in the Bering Sea. Because the ship is in international waters, it can be claimed by whomever is able to bring it to a port. The crew soon set out on the Arctic Warrior, a small tugboat. While exploring the abandoned ship, they discover that it is the Antonia Graza, an Italian luxury liner that disappeared in May 1962 and was believed to be lost at sea. The ocean liner's disappearance was well known at the time.
When they board the ship and prepare to tow it to shore, strange things begin to happen. Maureen Epps claims to have seen a little girl on the stairwell while trying to save a crewmate from falling through the floor. Greer claims to have heard the singing of an unseen songstress in various places on the ship. The crew decide to leave the ship but take the large quantity of gold that they find on board. Their tugboat mysteriously explodes, killing a crew member who was trying to fix the boat, and leaving them stranded on the ghost ship in the Bering Sea.
As they decide to attempt to fix the Antonia Graza and sail it back to land, more and more crew members are killed, as they discover more dark secrets about the ship, including bullet holes in the pool, and a skeleton hanging by a noose on a wardrobe. Maureen Epps meets a young girl named Katie — who was seen at the beginning of the movie dancing with the Captain — who reveals a dark secret: the crew turned on the passengers and each other in an attempt to get the gold that the ship carried.
Katie takes Maureen momentarily back to the past, where Epps finally sees what had happened. While the numerous dancers were sliced by the wire, the chefs in the kitchen were murdered and the crew began pouring rodent poison into the evening's food. The food was served, and it is obvious that people begin to succumb to the poison as their mouths dripped with foam. The crew begins taking the lives of the rest of the passengers, including Katie, as it dawns that it was Katie's skeleton Epps found earlier. The murderous crew also line some passengers by the pool and shooting them (accounting for the shell casings and bullet holes.) As the crew begins to take the gold, one crew member walks out of the small compartment where the valuables are stored. He takes a look at Francesca, who is also standing there, turns around, and viciously murders his fellow crewmates out of greed with a machine gun. Francesca then shoots him in the head with a pistol. At last, a man walks up to Francesca and they embrace. As he walks away, the singer looks up and sees a large hook swing into her face, killing her. The man burns a mark into her hand, and it is revealed that he, the mastermind of the attack, was Jack Ferriman, an evil spirit.
After this enlightenment, Epps decides to blow up the ship, but is confronted by Ferriman, who has killed the last remaining of Epps' crew. He states the obvious - by using the gold as bait, he has taken multitudes of souls to his masters; he has been doing this for a long time, and considers himself a "salvager" of souls. He guided the salvagers there merely to effect repairs. They fight for a short amount of time before Epps manages to blow up the ship, "killing" Ferriman. She is left in the debris as the souls trapped on the ship ascend to heaven; Katie stops to thank her.
Epps is discovered by a larger ship and taken back to land. The last scene shows Epps in the back of an ambulance at the docks. She looks out the back of the vehicle from her stretcher and sees crewmembers from her salvage crew carrying crates of gold onto the ship, followed moments later by Ferriman. He glares at her, and carries on, her screams cut short by the ambulance doors closing and the fade to the end credits.
[edit] Production
The film began life as a spec script called The Chimera. Originally, the film, as written, was a relatively bloodless psychological thriller as opposed to a more blatantly supernaturally themed movie. Most notably, much of the film's gore is absent from the screenplay. The film would have focused on four salvage crew members who end up stranded aboard the ghost vessel they are scuttling (the titular Chimera); over the course of one night, each member-- whether it be from panic, cabin fever, or supernatural forces-- goes insane and plots to kill the other three members of the crew. Over time, the script underwent rewrites, and the psychological aspects of the script were all jettisoned in favor of making the film a slasher.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Gabriel Byrne | Captain Sean Murphy |
| Julianna Margulies | Maureen Epps |
| Ron Eldard | Dodge |
| Desmond Harrington | Jack Ferriman |
| Isaiah Washington | Greer |
| Alex Dimitriades | Santos |
| Karl Urban | Munder |
| Emily Browning | Katie Harwood |
| Francesca Rettondini | Francesca |
| Boris Brkic | Chief Steward |
| Bob Ruggiero | Captain (as Robert Ruggiero) |
| Iain Gardiner | Purser |
| Adam Bieshaar | First Officer |
| Cameron Watt | Second Officer |
| Jamie Giddens | Friendly Officer |
[edit] Details
- The film's opening sequence in which everyone on the dance floor is sliced in half was originally conceived as a mass decapitation; the studio didn't like the idea.[citation needed]
- Jack Ferriman's "Soul Collector" character is named for Charon the Ferryman, the Greek mythological spirit who collected souls from one side of the river Acheron and ferried them across to Hades.[citation needed]This links to the character's last name: Ferriman.
- Gabriel Byrne replaced Brian Cox.[citation needed]
- The dance scenes on the foredeck and in the ballroom recreate the traditional Captain's Balls that were given near the end of transatlantic voyages. These were usually held as the ship neared the coast of the destination.
- The ghost captain tells Gabriel Byrne's character that the Antonia Graza rescued a ship called the Lorelei. Rescuing this ship is what eventually led to the destruction of the Antonia Graza and the death of all its passengers. "Die Lorelei" is a German poem about a siren-type woman who lures boats to ruin and sailors to their deaths.
- During the underwater scene in the end, Emily Browning had to have weights on her skirt because her dress kept floating over her head.
- A prank on the hidden-camera show The Jamie Kennedy Experiment involved actors auditioning for a stage musical version of Ghost Ship. Actress Julianna Margulies and producer Joel Silver appeared in the sketch as themselves.
[edit] See also
- Ghost ship, for an article on real-life mysteriously deserted ships.
