amosduncan_2000

I enjoy a lot of Val Lewton's movies too, but I'm afraid you may be led astray by the all but worshipful reviews here for The Ghost Ship. Because there is not much reasonable getting around the fact that this movie is lousy. The story does not seem very effectively worked out, the mute character seems trying to give the movie some credibility as a horror movie, but at any rate it does not much hang together. The acting is almost completely terrible and Dix is way out of his element. RKO was cranking these things out fast, I guess, and this just does not make it.

Stanley is enjoyable Drive In hokum, but it might have been a real classic if director Grefe had kept a little pace and not let long pauses and other nonsense pad the action. This film could lose about 25 minutes and be all the better for it. It's like they were afraid it was going to come out too short so they had everything go SLOW........ An obvious attempt to cash in on the success of "Willard" it is interesting that both central charactors start sympatheticly and turn bad. Actually, a more distinct arch in this case as Willard is kind of a creep from the get go.