Ghost Ship: Collector's Edition - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Ghost Ship: Collector's Edition



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
The early 2000’s was kind of an awkward time for horror movies. The 1970s and 1980s were the glory days of the slasher and spiritual terror flicks, while the 90s spent a lot of time trying to reinvent new stuff, and fill horror movies with half baked CGI that REALLY wasn’t ready for the mainstream yet. The early 2000s were kind of a cast off from the 90s, but with some old fashioned twists to them and they hold a sort of special place in my heart, as they certainly are weaker fare than decades past, but they TRY so very very hard that you can’t help but give them props.

Coming off of two William Castle remakes with House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts, Dark Castle entertainment decided to try something “new”. Or at least in this case, new IP, as the story for Ghost Ship borrows HEAVILY from the 1980 flick, Death Ship. Either way, the film was a creepy little thriller, using some of the big name actors of the day, including a BABY faced Karl Urban to tell the tale of a ship looking for more souls to send to Hell. It didn’t do that well in the box office only doing $68 million out of a $35 million budget (usually 2-3x budget cost is needed to break even), and I completely wrote it off due to the trailer alone. Come DVD time I remember grabbing it and watching it during my junior year in college and really enjoying it on a sleazy level, and then forgetting about it for the last 16-17 years. I even bought the Blu-ray of it from Warner back in 2009, but never even watched it (although I did watch it a few nights ago so that I could give a back to back comparison of the picture quality with Scream Factory’s new version).

The story revolves around a salvage crew led by one Captain Murphy (Gabriel Byrne) who have just come back for some much needed shore leave after a 6 month salvage operation. The crew are approached a man named Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) who claims to have found an ocean liner adrift in the sea, complete and unmolested, just ripe for the picking. Thinking that it might be worth it, Murphy takes his salvage boat out, and low and behold, they actually find the Antonio Garza. The Garza has been missing since 1962 and was known to be holding a giant stash of gold on board, making the salvage crew even more eager to get on board.

Jumping on deck finds the aging cruiser still in decent shape, but there seems to be a hitch. The crew starts seeing hallucinations of the old Antonia Garza crew, with second officer Epps (Julianna Margulies) having visions of a little girl who keeps warning her to get off. Little do they know that the source of power behind the ship is a little less physical, and a LOT more spiritual, and their very souls are at stake as a mysterious power steers them closer and closer to their doom.

Ghost Ship doesn’t have that much “horror” in it really, and most of the movie is more of a sci-fi thriller more than anything. However, it IS known for an opening 5 minute sequence that sets the stage for the film, where we see an unknown villain unhitching a cable on board the ship’s dance floor, which careens across the deck and literally cuts the passengers in half on the dance floor, leaving them in various forms of gory disarray. It’s a nasty little sequence of gore and goo that sets the film up for a nasty finish, but it’s something that really doesn’t come back in the film except as a memory as the rest of the movie plays out like a less hellish Event Horizon. It’s fun, but it’s never GREAT horror if you know what I mean.




Rating:

Rated R for strong violence/gore, language and sexuality




Video:

The 2009 Ghost Ship release from Warner Brothers got high marks for video back in the day, but I’d give it a much more conservative rating after 11 years, as many more transfers have surpassed it (back in 2007-2009 many Blu-rays were over rated because the fledgling format didn’t have a baseline yet for “GREAT” transfers), and it was also using the outdated VC-1 codec on a BD-25. Scream Factory seems to be using the same master used for that disc, but has given it a BD-50 as well as using the more efficient AVC encoding method. While the discs are much more similar than they are different, the Scream Factory disc edges out the Warner disc as it seems less smooth and has less crush blacks to it. The Warner disc WAS very nice for the day (a 91 minute film with few extras didn’t really NEED a ton of bitrate) and the Scream Factory just fine tunes it ever so slightly with the beefier storage space and enhanced codecs. The film has that early 2000s burnished look to it, with mixtures of teal and rusted red infused into the mix as well. Facial details appear quite nice, and while there is some black crush in the belly of the grungy old ship, the shadow detail levels remain high.








Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track (and the 2.0 downmix) are both the same mixes as what was found on the Warner Brothers disc down to the T. It’s a solid mix that isn’t very adventurous or expansive, but handles the dynamics of the spooky ship with relative ease. Dialog is the focus of much of the movie, with the characters whispering and talking to each other as they move along the old wreck. However there are some more exciting bits, such as them accidentally turning on the clock, the big explosion that wrecks their salvage boat, or the very out of place hip hop score that was used (which makes the film even weirder as it feels so out of place with the vibe). LFE is tight and punchy, adding plenty of creep factor to the music and score.









Extras:

• NEW This Isn’t Real – An Interview With Actor Isaiah Washington
• NEW Dark Castle At Sea – An Interview With Producer Gil Adler
• NEW Every Body On Board – An Interview With Makeup Effects Supervisor Jason Baird
• NEW Audio Commentary With Director Steve Beck
• Max On Set: Ghost Ship Featurette
• Visual Effects Featurette
• A Closer Look At The Gore Featurette
• Designing The Ghost Ship Featurette
• Secrets Of The Antonia Graza Clips
• Mudvayne “Not Falling” Music Video
• Theatrical Trailer

Final Score: ​

Ghost Ship is one of those guilty pleasures that isn’t THAT guilty, simply because Ghost Ship isn’t that bad. It’s a solid little horror/thriller that doesn’t aspire to be great, but also works well within the confines of it’s plot. The Scream Factory collector’s edition looks and sounds remarkably like the old Warner Brother’s release, but it’s big appeal comes from the brand new extras that adorn the set as well as a nifty new slip cover and cover art as well. Naturally the question to many fans of the film are “is it worth upgrading from my 2009 Blu-ray”? Well, that will depend mostly on how much you like the extras, as that’s all that has really changed. The video is slightly better (mostly due to the more efficient codec used) but the audio is the same, leaving the giant mass of extras that Scream compiled to be the deciding factor. Still worth checking out after 18 years, especially if you want to see a baby faced Karl Urban


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Isiah Washington, Karl Urban, Julianne Margulies, Desmond Harrington, Emily Browning
Directed by: Steve Beck
Written by: Mark Hanlon, John Pogue
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: R
Runtime: 91 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: September 29th, 2020

Recommendation: Check It Out