The one thing this movie should be is FUN. That is the major mistake the writers made. If they had gone full SyFy and replaced the ghosts with killer otters, it would have been significantly better. Instead, someone literally said "Hey Gary, let's make a Titanic but the villain is ghouls instead of glaciers."
You shouldn't make a SyFy channel style movie in the genre of horror PERIOD. Entertaining horror needs to have an actual attempt at creating a feeling of fear, or be funny, or even just gory (for people who like that, but not my thing). As none of these exist here, the movie plays out more like a disaster genre film. We have an impending doom that requires us to collectively put our heads together to solve a problem in order to survive.
A schlocky premise is fine, but then to treat the entire plot and dialogue in a serious manner immediately betrays that premise.
On top of this dealbreaker, they double down with another reason for instant failure... no likeable characters. You can only pick 2 types of people in this video game: bland or insufferable. You have nobody to root for in a movie of which you already know the ending, so for what reason do I have to take this journey?
Acting is the same as all these D movies.
Ship effects are distractingly bad and would serve better to not be shown at all. I'm not sure why the set designers think the steering room of a cruise ship would look like a Naval battleship. Horror effects are that of a SeaWorld haunted house, which isn't bad, but not film-worthy. I actually like the plot but it is about as poorly executed as possible.
And yes, I managed to not make any nautical puns throughout this entire review. You're welcome, ya dinghy.
(I rate movies based on expectations. You can't put Sharknado on the same scale as Jaws.)
