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Ghost Ship (2002)

tomatometer

13

Average Rating: 3.8/10
Reviews Counted: 122
Fresh: 16 | Rotten: 106

With a plot as creaky as the boat, Ghost Ship fails to deliver the scares.

10

Average Rating: 3.5/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 26

With a plot as creaky as the boat, Ghost Ship fails to deliver the scares.

audience

53

liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 356,461

My Rating

Movie Info

A salvage team think they've made the find of a lifetime, until they discover there's more on board than meets the eye in this supernatural thriller. Led by Captain Sean Murphy (Gabriel Byrne), the crew of the tugboat Arctic Warrior have discovered a sideline far more lucrative than hauling ships in and out of the harbor -- they locate missing or wrecked ships in international waters, repair them until they can be brought back to port, and then sell off the ship and its contents as salvage.

R, 1 hr. 31 min.

Horror

John Pogue, Mark Hanlon, Mark D. Hanlon

Mar 25, 2003

$30.1M

Warner Bros. Pictures

Cast

All Critics (126) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (19) | Rotten (108) | DVD (27)

A lame script, featuring sorry dialogue and a senseless story, is more likely to provoke laughs than screams from its intended audience.

October 30, 2002 Comment
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic IconTop Critic

In a cut-and-paste job more transparent than ectoplasm, Ghost Ship screenwriters Mark Hanlon and John Pogue plunder every notable horror movie from the last 30 years.

October 29, 2002 Full Review Source: Village Voice | Comment
Village Voice
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A dumb movie with dumb characters doing dumb things and you have to be really dumb not to see where this is going.

October 29, 2002 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | Comment
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A ticket to tedium, a horror movie so devoid of horror that mouths will open wide in yawns, without a scream to be heard.

October 26, 2002 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This creaking vessel of a movie can't spice a routine story with genuine horror.

October 26, 2002 Comment
Denver Rocky Mountain News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Audiences will feel more tricked than treated after sitting through this silly gorefest that wastes the talents of several good actors.

October 26, 2002 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Do not board Ghost Ship.

January 1, 2011 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

...long on set design, atmosphere, and special effects but short on mystery, suspense, characterization, common sense, logic, or simple frights. (Blu-ray Edition)

October 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
Movie Metropolis

Three things can be counted on from Warner Bros. and Dark Castle's annual Halloween release: (1) a lot of spiffy special effects; (2) a fair amount of gore; and (3) not one single scare.

January 27, 2009 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com | Comment
TheMovieReport.com

B-movies can be better than this.

October 29, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

There is a sense of predictability about the film after the promising start and for all its good intentions it never takes us on board with its mish mash of ghosts, mysticism and spiritual concoction.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment
Urban Cinefile

Beck clobbers the audience with the most gruesome prologue I have ever seen in a horror movie and then settles the story into a routine ghost story and bloody body count.

August 7, 2008 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | Comment
Sacramento News & Review

The movie has few surprises for lifelong horror fans, but it'll keep them (or us -- I count myself in their number) happily diverted for just under 90 minutes.

February 14, 2008 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

Director Beck loses it, with techno-scored flashbacks (note: techno isn't scary) and blow-up-the-place gimmickry...

December 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

The final reel plots a course smack between predictable and sheer idiocy.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Os efeitos visuais são risíveis, os diálogos são péssimos e o filme simplesmente não assusta. Em contrapartida, a trama é desenvolvida de tal maneira que jamais perdemos o interesse no que está acontecendo.

August 19, 2003 Comment
Cinema em Cena

It's a workmanlike production, with no surprises, no scares and no jokes - unless you count the demon that laments his job by saying he must gather enough souls to fill a quota.

June 26, 2003 Full Review | Comment

Director Steven Beck builds his Ghost Ship with borrowed materials from all across the cinematic sea.

May 20, 2003 Comment
Palo Alto Weekly

It should be mentioned that the set design and interiors of the haunted vessel are more than effectively creepy and moodily lit. So I just did.

April 26, 2003 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

effectively keeps things suspenseful even when faced with some hoary cliches.

April 5, 2003 Full Review Source: Killer Movie Reviews | Comment
Killer Movie Reviews
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Ghost Ship

Not to be mistaken for Val Lewton 40's film, this version is a little bit more impressive but not necessarily much better. The idea itself is brilliant, the possibilities could have been endless - a franchise could have been born, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. After a brilliant first sequence, this film just got

October 25, 2011
SirPant

Super Reviewer

Can I please get one thing straight - if a film has a jumpy moment near the beginning of a film, it HAS TO KEEP TO THAT JUMPY THEME! You get one jumpy scene with a clock, then that's it folks - Ghost Ship is flawed from the start. A scene where a boat full of people are killed by a metal wire that rips them all in

August 28, 2011
BG Movie Reviews
BG Movie Reviews 2011

Super Reviewer

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