Le Bateau de la mort

When I was a kid I hated this movie. But, after additional viewings and understanding that there is a creepiness to the film and some good ideas. Yet it is not a good horror film in my mind and those good ideas become wasted due to what I find are scenes that are too drawn out, stupid characters and it does become tiring watching the characters bumble around an empty ship.

The story is about a cruise ship with ultra-stuffy Captain Ashland (George Kennedy) on his final voyage. They crash into this mysterious ship and are sunk. The few shipwrecked survivours are in a lifeboat and come across that very ship that sunk them. Inside they begin to find horrific secrets and must escape before their very lives are taken.

Film also has a pretty darn good cast that also includes Richard Crenna, Nick Mancuso, Kate Reid and Saul Rubinek. Yet, in the end it just misses the mark.

Not as gory as it needed to be and there are a few weird continuity problems, but overall its, particularly the last half hour, a creepy ghost story with some nice atmosphere. Despite the low budget, it works well, even if the beginning is dull and the characters are pretty forgettable. Almost a hidden gem, but still worth seeing.

Creepy and exciting movie about some shipwrecked lead to remains of a deserted ghost ship that's been missing for more than 40 years , since WWII, it is packed with good actors and slick direction . The film concerns about a passenger luxury liner is crashed by a strange freighter . The castaways enter into the rare German ship and after encounter themselves trapped and they figure out that things are not as they should. A frightening vessel lost from the 40s at a remote region nowadays is floating drift.The mysterious Nazi vessel is lost at sea for more than 50 years.But one time aboard the cavernous, eerie ship, the group encounter that the decaying Oceaner freighter is anything but deserted. Boarding the ship results to be a big mistake since the tragedy that overtook the lives of crew and captain lingers and starts to affect the present passengers. When a series of bizarre occurrences happen and the crew becomes caught in a web of ghastly deeds ,they soon learn is inhabited by haunting previous crew.

The picture contains scary suspense, thrills, terror,tension, chills and is quite entertaining. Deserted ship is portrayed as a complete riddle with weird events,screams and grisly horrifying happenings. The movie paid attention to building up a terrifying atmosphere instead of violent and stabbing killing spree.The action takes completely place into a rusty ship wreck .The argument isn't original but it's being gradually revealed with nutty enchantment , such as ¨The shinning(Kubrick)¨ style and it attracts viewer's attention. The picture is starred by fine actors, doing some correct performances, as Richard Crenna, George Kennedy, Sally Ann Howes and nice secondary role for Saul Rubinek .If you're enthusiastic of the mystery tales and B films, so you'll encounter this picture to be agreeable. If your interest lies on a more cerebral terror movie,then I highly recommend you skip this one.This eerie movie is rightly directed by Alvin Rakoff during the 8os, he is a craftsman Canadian director as cinema as television . The film is recommended for all horror lovers which will find many nice eerie shots though not very logical but still their appetite for gruesome scenes will be satisfied.

Other adaptation about 'ghost ships' are the following : For television titled ¨The triangle(2001)¨by Lewis Teague with Luke Perry, Dan Cortese , Olivia Dábo and Polly Shannon, the high budgeted by Joel Silver titled ¨ The Ghost ship (2002) ¨ by Steven Beck with Julianne Margules, Ron Eldard and Gabriel Byrne and for Sci-Fi channel titled ¨The ghost voyage¨ with Antonio Sabato and Gary-Hiroyaki Tagawa.

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!

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.