3.0 out of 5 stars
Love Boat (NOT!) with a B-Ghost Story, April 7, 2006
This review is from: Ghost Ship/Thirteen Ghosts (DVD)
This two pack contains a couple of watchable horror movies. Neither is great, but both have their moments.
"Ghost Ship"
This movie starts almost like an episode of "Love Boat." The music is light and nearly romantic as you zoom into the ship Antonia Graza cruising the high seas with well-dressed crew and passengers. However, no sooner do you zoom onto the ship with dancing passengers than a really bad thing happens, and there is blood and horrible death.
We fast forward 40 years and meet a salvage ship crewed by a variety of nearly stereotypical characters. After a brief introduction showing how dedicated the crew members are, the salvage ship heads out to sea. During a storm the salvage ship runs into, literally, the Antonia Graza. Naturally the crew members see a huge salvage opportunity and the money to be made from that opportunity. Thus the plot of the movie is reasonably simple: return the Graza to running condition and take her to port to be able to make a fortune. Of course, a variety of eerie events occur that let you know that the Graza is not just a derelict ship waiting to be salvaged.
As the movie progresses, the wonderfully spooky atmosphere enhances what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill ghost story. There are predictable portions of the movie, always an annoyance in any movie, but fortunately there are nearly as many unpredictable scenes. Perhaps the most interesting part of the movie is the last 15 or 20 minutes, when the fate of the ship and crew 40 years earlier is revealed in great and gory detail. Furthermore, I was not expecting what happened at the very end of the movie.
This movie is not likely to win any awards. However, the sets, the cinematography and portions of the plot made this movie worthy of a bowl of popcorn and a future re-watch. There are probably no points in the movie where I jumped or my heart leapt, but I was intrigued by the periodic hints of what happened to the ship 40 years earlier, and what the ship was doing during the time from 40 years ago to today. I recommend this movie for a dark and stormy night with the wind howling and rain pouring.
"Thirteen Ghosts"
Ah yes, the ever-popular B-movie. This movie is exactly that, and as with all B-movies, there will be those who like it, those who don't, and those who thought it was okay but were generally bored.
The plot has a couple of unique twists, the house is great, and I saw a death that I had not previously seen in a movie. If the twists, the house or the death fail to hold your interest or intrigue you, then you will quickly lose interest and either became bored, or you will not like the movie at all.
The story is relatively simple, and some parts of it parallel other horror movies. A ghost-hunting relative (in this case, an uncle) dies (there's a twist here), leaving a huge mansion and a lot of money to a relatively poor relative. The poor relative moves his family along with assorted hangers-on and intruders into the relative's house. The deceased relative had ulterior motives for wanting his heir to move into the house (which I won't talk about - there have to be some surprises), and miscellaneous acts of gory violence ensue.
I understood early on that the ghosts appearing and disappearing even when wearing the special glasses was an ability that the ghosts had, but they had to appear to cause physical events. However, the popping in and out, which was initially interesting, became annoying. Some of the early manifestations had some level of scare factor. The best scenes involve a bath tub and the basement; afterward the affect was diluted as you became numb to ghosts popping in and out.
The concept that the ghosts in the basement were there to power a portal to hell was interesting, along with the technique the uncle used to unleash the ghosts and direct them to their appropriate locations.
There was a lot of acting horsepower in this movie, including Tony Shalhoub, Shannon Elizabeth, F. Murray Abraham, Matthew Dillard, and Embeth Davidtz (who also starred in "Matilda", if you can believe that). In general the acting was decent, though I struggled a couple of times with Tony Shalhoub's struggle to accept Matthew Dillard's insistence that supernatural events were occurring in the house; it felt a bit artificial. Even with all that horsepower, the real star of the movie was the house, a conglomeration of glass, antiques, Latin inscriptions, and, of course, ghosts. There were several problems with the house scenes. First, the scenes of the central engine were shown time after time, and ultimately began to feel like filler since it didn't really advance the plot. Second, you never really knew where you were in the house other than in general terms, so while the house was big, the immensity was conveyed only when looking from the outside. Third, just how did Embeth Davidtz get into the house after it appeared to close up? Her answer seemed more than a stretch, perhaps something the director made up while having a martini.
This movie had a lot of potential. The basic concept was solid, and the acting horsepower unusual for a B horror movie. However, while there were flashes of excellence, overall the movie delivered only part of the goods. Those flashes of excellence pushed the movie into a 3-star rating, thus making it watchable. Forgive the parts of the movie where it drags or has plot implausibilities.
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