Verdict
Summary
A spook fest that gets under your skin, thanks to convincing direction by Alan Rakoff, a plot that is well executed with its practical sets, makeup effects, and a steam train of a performance by Kennedy, who really sells his unlikable captain character. The film works, and reminded me of other “dead space” movies such as Event Horizon and Ghost Ship with its bleak situation and ghastly implications.
Plot:
A cruise liner crashes into a “death ship,” leaving a few survivors stranded aboard the ghostly ship.
Review:
A cruise liner on its final lap before completing its voyage at sea suddenly finds itself on an unavoidable collision course with a huge ship during the night. The cruise’s captain (George Kennedy), who is being forced to retire, with his second in command (played by Richard Crenna) set to take over the captain’s chair, scrambles to try to save his passengers, but they collide, quickly sinking the cruise liner and almost all of its passengers in a catastrophe. Left adrift in a dingy, the captain, his second in command with his wife and two small children, another shipmate (Nick Mancuso) and his girlfriend, plus the cruise’s comedian (Saul Rubinek) and another older woman are all that’s left, and when they come to realize that the ship that collided into them is reachable, they find themselves aboard the massive ship, but are stunned when they find that it is uninhabited. And yet … the ship is strangely active and seems possessed by a malevolent force, a force of death! The captain quickly begins acting in a forceful manner, declaring that he’s the captain of this ship too, but his rules are that no one leaves, even if the others want to get off as soon as possible and into one of the life rafts. Sabotaging the others at every turn, the captain becomes possessed and does the bidding of the “death ship,” which, as it turns out, was a Nazi death camp, a ship full of corpses and evidence that heinous experiments were being conducted, which is no place for a bunch of innocent, fresh souls to be around.
A spook fest that gets under your skin, thanks to convincing direction by Alan Rakoff, a plot that is well executed with its practical sets, makeup effects, and a steam train of a performance by Kennedy, who really sells his unlikable captain character. The film works, and reminded me of other “dead space” movies such as Event Horizon and Ghost Ship with its bleak situation and ghastly implications. It’s simple, yet very effective, and fans of possession horror films and early ’80s aesthetics should appreciate this one. Jack Hill contributed to the story.
Kino Lorber brings Death Ship to 4K Ultra HD for the first time, and the 4K scan of the original camera negative enlivens and crystallizes the image to its best presentation yet. Special features include three audio commentaries, a documentary, the extended cut (which runs two minutes longer than the theatrical version), the isolated score, and more. Kino’s release also includes a Blu-ray disc.
