Ghost Voyage

Has some nice ideas here but nothing ever comes together. The story, the actors, the special effects, all way below the industry standard. Speaking of the actors, wow, they were terrible. The accents are so over the top it is almost painful to talk and I was glad to see many of them go. The special effects, dreadful for a movie made now a days. Everything looked so fake and like someone made it on their laptop. And for the story...it started off decent with a kind of cool premise but it just gets way to drawn out and turns into pointless dribble throughout the movie. Do yourself a favor and avoid this...unless you enjoy a good laugh at a terrible "horror" movie.

The opening with a group of strangers awakening to find themselves aboard an old broken down cargo vessel is sufficiently eerie enough, and the oddball spectre-like "steward" who gives the confused passengers a list of ship rules is menacing. None of them knows how they got there, or why.

It's not a bad premise, sort of a Twilight Zone approach. The movie at first looks like it's going to rip off "Death Ship" and some others, but actually finds its own direction. It manages to present the mystery of what is going on, who is behind it, etc. It avoids giving up too much information too soon and guides the audience along with well-timed expository dialog and some weird discoveries aboard the spooky vessel. It throws in some ghost-like apparitions, ancient ritualistic behavior, and a "test" which is graded coldly and positively. Not bad stuff, really.

But the longer the movie goes on, the weaker it gets. Many characters are so cliché and obviously marked for unpleasant fates, that it's laughable. Some of the special effects look like they were done with an Etch-a-Sketch toy. Most of the cast (fortunately those who make early exits) act at about the kindergarten play level. However, the longer-lasting people act better; and their characters have some dimension. The resolution actually shows some thought was put into it.

A decent flick for a rainy weekend afternoon.

When was the last time a decent movie came out of Sci-Fi Pictures? I honestly can't recall even a mediocre one. This one continues their unbroken chain. I will admit that it gets to an intriguing start, placing the characters in a mysterious situation they can't figure out. The sets are also passable for what must have been a low budget.

Unfortunately, it doesn't take long before the movie starts to collapse. The movie beings with a brisk pace, but it doesn't take long to slow down, enough that the movie is progressing at an agonizingly slow crawl. Also, the characters are poorly developed. They are dull, and don't seem scared or confused that much by the situation that they are finding themselves in. And they are pretty interchangeable in their actions - not one character stands out.

Oh, and the CGI is horrible as well, though you probably guessed that when I announced this was a Sci-Fi Pictures movie.

This movie is about 7 strangers who mysteriously 'wake up' on a salvage ship out in the middle of nowhere with no idea of how they got there. Of course, they want off and, equally obvious, it's just not going to be that easy. This movie takes off a bit slow but maintains a decent flow that keeps you watching till the very end just to see how it turns out. It's a bit (quite a bit) predictable but still worthy of holding the viewers interest. It has a bit of a 'Saw' premise with a 'long, lost ghost ship' attitude. Antonio Sabato Jr. is still a good actor (I loved him in Earth 2, the series), I just wonder why he's not doing his thing in bigger movies. Another good actor in this movie is Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, he's been in quite a few movies (The Last Emporer, Mortal Kombat and Memoirs of a Geisha) and he's always interesting to watch...unfortunately his role in this movie is minimal although pivotal. If you're looking for something to kill the time then this movie is for you. Don't expect fireworks but you can prepare to be entertained or, at least, occupied for a while.

"You don't have a clue what's going on here, do you?" our heroine is heard to ask at one point during this floating "Sci Fi Original" slapped-together crap of a movie. A better question is, who cares? Nine strangers wake up aboard a colossal cargo ship in stormy seas finding no one else aboard but an Asian steward who prepares them for their strange voyage with a list of ship "rules". Naturally, we soon see the price of transgression as each thinly-drawn passenger in their own own way steps over the line and is stalked by seemingly random ghosties (all without being properly introduced). By the time the purpose of all this familiar and predictable spectral terror has been revealed the viewer should be struggling mightily not to start surfing from this aquatic embarrassment to another channel.

The eerie interiors are the best part of this movie for me, though a lot of them look more like they belong to a submarine than a cargo ship. The plot is as old as seafaring history and the dialog could have been written in an internet chat room. The characters aren't clearly motivated for a second and every other actor is saddled with an atrocious accent for no apparent reason. The performances range from listless to laughable but that's hardly worth mentioning since these actors have clearly been punished enough by having to read those horrifically infantile lines.

A few trolls might take some amusement from the sheer amateur ineptitude of this movie but I can't honestly recommend it to horror enthusiasts or even horror-at-sea completests. DIVE DIVE DIVE!