Le Bateau de la mort

Ok, we've already stated the fact that I LOVE b-movies. A lot of them are cheesy, badly acted, and have horrible plots. But that's what I love about them. And surely this film has all those right elements for a b-movie. But what this film does better than those other films, is that I manages to maintain atmospheric. Some of the scenes in this film were absolutely frightening! It kept me spellbound and wondering what was going to happen next. Even though, it was blatantly obvious and predictable. It still kept me guessing at certain parts. I give it a 9. Watch it if you are a die-hard horror fan or b-movie fan. Oh yeah, George Kennedy actually gave an award winning, creepy performance as the captain who wanted to take over the Nazi Freighter.

I first began my relationship with "Death Ship" when I were a lad growing up in the Heart of England - we had a little video library in our village that had quite a nice selection of horrors and I was always fascinated by the garish, ghoulish box art... Oh, and there were few as ghoulish as the spooky cover of "Death Ship", which I vividly remember recreating with pencil sketches in my schoolbooks. We rented it and I have VERY vague recollections of it not being very good but I never got round to see it as an adult. When the video certification act came to pass in 1984, "Death Ship" (rated X) was removed from the shelves, never to be released again in the UK. Which brings us to the present day - after all these years, I finally score a copy by chance, excitedly bring it home and, with a set belief in my mind that it's going to be a huge disappointment and a rubbish movie, I line up the alcoholic anathestic and push the tape into the cringing VCR... To my surprise, "Death Ship" turns out to be a winner! In fact, I'd file it quite high up in my "Lost Gems" folder - quite why this one has been resigned to the Dustbin of History and the Golden Turkey awards is beyond me. I was greatly impressed!

The plot is reasonably simple but inarguably bizarre. In the opening scenes, a luxury cruise ship packed with holidaymakers collides with some kind of ghastly black vessel in the middle of the ocean. The cruiser sinks, killing almost everyone on board. There are only about eight survivors who sit floating in a lifeboat, waiting for someone to come and rescue them... Unfortunately the only sign of life for miles is this horrific looking black ship that's just lingering ominously in the ocean. The cruiser's curmudgeonly Captain (George Kennedy) is becoming increasingly ill, having nearly drowned, so the group of survivors decide that they will have to board the evil looking vessel in order to get food, drink and shelter. It doesn't take long to find that the ship is completely deserted and, although no one can rationalise how or why, it seems to be running itself! Worse still, we start to see through a series of unusual events (ie: people being hit over the head with flying objects, doors locking folks in spooky old rooms) that the ship appears to want its new passengers offboard as soon as possible.

It's all quite "Twilight Zone" to begin with but as the film moves along, it gets increasingly horrific and frenzied, hurtling towards a (quite literally) crushing climax. The film is shot mostly onboard the ship and it's a wonderfully unpleasant set. From the moment they first board and get covered with oil and grease, you can virtually smell the rust on the ancient machinery and, as it develops, the stench of putrefaction. Oh, and THE SMELL OF FEAR (oh c'mon, it's a George Kennedy movie, I had to make at least one "Naked Gun" joke!)... Seriously though, it's clearly low budget, but I really enjoyed the rough and raw directorial style - the darkness and the frequent use of shaky, hand-held camera angles and really lend it an air of madness and menace. I felt the energy of the direction coupled with such genuinely ugly and sinister set pieces combined to create a very unique atmosphere that is, from start to finish, thoroughly unpleasant. There are certain scenes, mostly in the chaotic second half, which just make your skin crawl - the murder scenes aren't particularly *gory* as such, but they're shot in such a feverish manner as to prove really quite unsettling indeed. When the real identity of the ship is finally revealed and we discover what befell of the 'crew', it's an almighty suckerpunch and, again, the use of maniacal camera-work and some utterly disgusting sets just add to the overall effect.

As I said before, I can't understand why "Death Ship" gets such a bad rap. As a haunted house movie, it's one of the better ones I've seen - on top of the rabid direction and deathlike atmosphere, we even have some real quality actors in this one (Kennedy is particularly menacing as the cruiser Captain whom the death ship begins to drive slowly mad) *AND* a cracking script to boot. The storyline moves at just the right pace (the first half builds up creepily and then the second one is a breakneck descent into the inferno) and it's unusual enough to make "Death Ship" an extremely memorable horror movie. I'd give this one an easy 8 out of 10 on the Horror-O-Meter. If you can find a copy, it's well worth seeing!

Plot

A mysterious ghostly freighter rams and sinks a modern day cruise ship whose survivors climb aboard the freighter and discover that it is a World War II Nazi torture vessel.

Cast

George Kennedy, Richard Crenna and a brief contribution from Saul Rubinek.

Verdict

I've always loved the cover art for Death Ship, trouble is for whatever reason it took me over three decades after initially seeing it to get round to watching it.

Truth be told I was quite excited booting it up, great cover art, a very interesting sounding premise and it's always great seeing George Kennedy. Did it live up to my 30+ year expectations? No, sadly very much not.

You see though it manages to be suitably creepy with its ghost ship setting it never really feels like it goes anywhere and when it does it's a tad non-sensical and very underwhelming. I wanted it to be more visceral, instead it adopts a very disappointing approach and also provides us with walk to walk lackluster deaths and a finale that feels rushed and apathetic.

Death Ship is one of those few movies I think could do with a remake to reach the potential is badly squandered here.

Rants

I was going to do a rant about the people who original ran the ship this movie is about, speak of how I'm in awe that they're so prevalent at time of writing and ask how such a thing is even possible. That however would likely prevent this from getting published so I'll resist the urge.

The Good

George Kennedy is excellent here Fantastic concept Solid setting Brilliant cover art

The Bad

Annoying kids Awful deaths Concept is wasted Too many plot holes.

Atrocious acting,nonsensical script,very low production values:all these elements can be found in Alvin Rakoff's "Death Ship".So why am I not going to trash this little movie?It's simple,I really like this film for those very reasons.It is everything low-budget horror movie should be,yet still manages to tell its story and generate a considerable amount of unease and dread.A cruise ship is destroyed by another ship(the Death Ship),killing most of the crew.The few survivors of the crash,who include the captain(George Kennedy from "Creepshow 2" or "Just Before Dawn"),a family of four and some others,decide that it would be a good idea to board the same ship that crashed their cruise ship.The death ship then starts killing its new victims.Despite so many bad comments "Death Ship" is still watchable.It has some really creepy scenes and memorable moments.Yes,the film doesn't make very much sense,but that's not what director Alvin Rakoff intended.Instead he puts together nightmarish sequences surrounded by an eerie sounds.You have to be a real horror fan to fully appreciate "Death Ship".Check this one out,it's pretty good.Highly recommended.

Professionally wanting as this may be, film-makers have re-worked the concept twice now. VIRUS in 1999 (rogue ship seemingly abandoned, which when boarded proves to be an unpleasant experience) and this year's GHOST SHIP, an even closer related caper, which has even ripped-off the original POSTER with only subtle alterations. Matter of fact the entire FILM has been ripped off with only subtle alterations....less Nazis, more ghosts!

You just know with Richard Crenna up front in the credits you're looking at a B-Grade production from the outset. Live with it! For my money too, give me a REAL ship with REAL people anytime...leaves the digitised variety for dead. The brooding leviathan that (I have to admit laughably) sneaks up on Crenna and the few survivors of the opening rammed-ship sequence (yeah, that wasn't great either!) is all menace from the opening scenes. Big brute too! one would wonder how 35-40,000 tons of ship can sneak up on four people floating in the Atlantic without a sound! Anyway, lets not get into semantics..it DOES and our intrepid bunch board the seemingly deserted vessel and make a most unpleasant if not illogical discovery. (Don't ask how the vessel has been cruising around for forty odd years without a grease and oil-change, never mind a re-fuelling!)

Some intense and really quite chilling scenes manage to lift the film way above the dialog which rarely gets past high school work-experience level. Some quite effective camera work too supports the view that the film has its moments and does not deserve to be consigned to the junk bin. Actually it plays way better these days if you go watch GHOST SHIP first. Not one in 2000 of today's viewers has ever heard of DEATH SHIP so the makers need never have been concerned with viewer comparison.

George Kennedy playing right against type is a hoot as Captain Ashland, who by degrees loses it, as he is "possessed" by the ship's original Germanic complement of officers. Trust me, it gets better after multiple viewings over twenty years.....and I paid $5 for it!