Haunting of the Mary Celeste

Of all the faux pas of movie directors, to make a film where you can't make out what's going on because you can't see has to be the worst. there's simply no excuse for it!

Combine this with it being pretty boring when you can follow it, you may struggle to make it to the end. About 2/3 through was the best i could do.

First of all, I must say that the movie's cover/poster was actually the best part about the entire movie. Yeah, a sad thing to say, I know, but that is actually the truth.

And the movie's cover was just way too reminiscent of the 2002 movie "Ghost Ship", for better or worse. Sure, I like the cover of both movies, but they are actually two very similar covers. And the movies actually share similarities as well. So go figure.

Well, the storyline told in the 2020 movie "Haunting of the Mary Celeste" turned out to be rather mundane and boring actually. Very little of anything worthwhile watching took place throughout the course of the entire movie. Which made for a very prolonged movie, let me just tell you that. So in my opinion then writers Jerome Olivier and David Ross didn't really manage to deliver a wholesome and entertaining movie.

Richard Roundtree was actually the actor whose performance carried the movie and made it somewhat bearable to sit through the ordeal that is known as "Haunting of the Mary Celeste". It should be said that the acting performances were adequate from all people on the cast list, but it was Richard Roundtree that stood out as the most memorable performer in the movie.

For a horror movie then "Haunting of the Mary Celeste" was bland, so very, very bland. And there was absolutely nothing scary about the story whatsoever. So I can't claim to be overly impressed with what director Shana Betz managed to do with the material from the writers.

If you enjoy a proper horror movie then "Haunting of the Mary Celeste" is not the best of choices, as there are far more scary horror movies readily available.

My rating of "Haunting of the Mary Celeste" ends on a mere three out of ten stars. I wasn't impressed, nor particularly entertained. And this is definitely not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.

I wanted to start by mentioning that another reviewer gave inaccurate info on what happened to the Mary Celeste. She was not run aground by her captain (if she was where did the captain and his family go?), as she was found floating by another vessel and taken to Gibralter. People are still trying to figure out what happened to those on board. There was definitely a good story to be told about researching this ship. I didn't feel like this movie accomplished that. I don't think this film qualified as a horror movie, and it seemed like the writer didn't quite know what they wanted to say...I was pleasantly surprised to see Richard Roundtree and I thought he did a good job. SInce Amara starred in this film it's too bad the Winchesters weren't investigating because they would have done a much better job and the movie would have been more interesting lol.

Ultimately this is an enjoyably mild and atmospheric horror film if you get past the slightly dull first half. It has the production values of a TV Movie, but is atmospherically shot with a nice line in melancholy.

The acting is convincing throughout, even during the talky scenes set in featureless cabins. A slow burner for sure, but not bad. My score is 6 out of 10.

... for such a little project and, I assume, such a little budget, but the narrative is disjointed, the acting is stiff and the characters kind of annoying. Sadly, I would not recommend it.