DEATH SHIP
(Canada/UK - 1980)
Directed by Alvin Rakoff. Written by John Robins. Cast: George Kennedy, Richard Crenna, Nick Mancuso, Sally Ann Howes, Kate Reid, Saul Rubinek, Victoria Burgoyne, Jennifer McKinney, Danny Higham. (R, 91 mins)
DEATH SHIP is probably better known for its chillingly effective poster art than for the film itself, though it does have a devoted following. A ubiquitous presence on cable, late-night TV, and video store shelves throughout the 1980s, DEATH SHIP has some occasionally striking bits of atmosphere and two memorable death scenes that became minor classics with horror fans, but for the most part, it's really nothing spectacular, and it's hobbled by some clumsy direction, sloppy editing, and an unwillingness to cut loose and exploit its more outrageous elements. DEATH SHIP has certainly achieved cult classic status, but it might be a case where it's more about sentimentality for a bygone era than anything inherently "great" about the film itself. DEATH SHIP seemed to constantly be on TV when we were kids, so it's a film that a lot of horror fans--myself included--saw during an influential and formative period in their lives. This was one of those movies that a lot of us cut our teeth on and, as is often the case, the way it exists in your memory is perhaps a lot more satisfying than the reality.
Cold, unlikable cruise ship captain Ashland (George Kennedy) is on his last voyage and breaking in Capt. Marshall (Richard Crenna), his more affable, people-person replacement when the ship collides with a mysterious vessel that seemed to intentionally target them. The cruise ship sinks and Marshall leads the handful of survivors--his wife Margaret (Sally Ann Howes), their kids (Jennifer McKinney, Danny Higham), shipmate Nick (Nick Mancuso), his girlfriend Lori (Victoria Burgoyne), religious widow Sylvia (Kate Reid), and comedian Jackie (Saul Rubinek)--onto a raft where they encounter the presumed-dead, barely-conscious Ashland in the water. They come upon the very ship that caused the tragedy and upon boarding it, find it completely uninhabited. It's a German ship, and soon Ashland starts hearing German voices in his head and acting strangely. Mysterious things start happening and the ship seems to be killing the survivors one by one. Ashland starts reading from a German-printed Bible and declaring that "No one leaves the ship!" Marshall finds a room with rotting corpses and extracted gold teeth and jewelry and concludes that this was a Nazi torture ship that now roams the vast, open waters, powered by its dead victims. Or, as the possessed Ashland declares, "It needs blood."
DEATH SHIP, released in US theaters in March of 1980, has some strange similarities to two other ghost movies released the same year: John Carpenter's THE FOG and Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING. Like THE FOG, released a month earlier, it's a seafaring ghost story (though Carpenter's film has its ghosts of a shipwreck invading a small town), and unlike the slasher films gaining a foothold in the horror genre at the time, it's filled mostly with adult characters and older, reliable actors. But THE SHINING wouldn't be out for another three months, and DEATH SHIP prefigures it in several ways, starting with the idea of Ashland, like Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) being possessed by a haunted structure (like the Overlook Hotel) filled with ghosts of an ugly past. Marshall finds a roomful of rotting corpses that looks a lot like the vision Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) has in the lobby of the Overlook. When the crazed Ashland tries to convince a weakened Marshall to kill his wife and children because the ship needs him to, he briefly goes from functioning as the Jack Torrance of the film to become the Delbert Grady stand-in, much the way the ghost of the former Overlook caretaker convinced Jack of the need to "correct" his wife and son. When Marshall and Nick finds themselves trapped in a room where a Nazi propaganda film seems to be playing on its own, and are then suddenly out of the room, it's similar to the way Jack Torrance is locked in the food storage room and apparently (though, as in DEATH SHIP, we never see when or how) released by the ghost of Grady. This scene also suggests that DEATH SHIP might be playing with space and time and on its way to a "they've been dead all along" or "they've always been here" finale, but John Robins' script (from a story by Roger Corman veteran Jack Hill) isn't even adventerous enough for something that predictable. No, most of the cast is killed and the people you expect to survive do and are rescued. And the Death Ship...gets away?
Rubinek! |
The great Richard Crenna (1926-2003) |
DEATH SHIP is just out on DVD from Scorpion (the Blu-ray is coming later in December or possibly January) and it's a very nice-looking transfer at 1.78:1. Slaney's score is given its own separate audio track, and other extras include a trailer and deleted scenes that were included in the TV version to get it to the standard 100 minutes to fill a two-hour prime-time slot (I could be wrong, but I seem to recall this airing on NBC at least once). All in all, DEATH SHIP is not a very good film, but watching it again definitely takes the graying horror nerd back to those influential days of childhood when everything was awesome, before seeing so many movies turned a lot of us into jaded cynics. So in that respect, I'm happy that this finally got a quality DVD (and very near-future Blu-ray) release.
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