For once, it isn’t entirely clear to me why this film was included in the course’s watch list. My best guess is that it’s an early example of low-budget B-movies, especially one in the horror genre. Reading through Wikipedia, I see that it was withdrawn shortly after release due to being the subject of plagiarism lawsuit and was not available again for 50 years until after its copyright expired. I wonder if that fact will be relevant in the lectures.

Set almost entirely on board a ship and with a cast of predominantly male actors, The Ghost Ship follows young marine officer Tom Merriam on his first cruise. He seems to get along well with the captain Will Stone initially but as bad luck seems to plague the ship and accidents start piling up, he finds more and more reason to doubt not only the captain’s competence but increasingly his sanity as well.

Like many other horror movies, this film teases the audience relentlessly over whether or not there’s a supernatural element to what is going on. It can get a bit heavy-handed, such as the clichéd blind man offering an ominous warning, the strangely wise narrative voice of the mute, or even the title itself. But there are also some very effective fake-outs, such as the captain mysteriously telling off Merriam that he has no right to take the life of even an insect on the ship. Still, at its heart it’s really a psychological horror movie and I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say so.

One thing that The Ghost Ship indubitably gets right is the creepy atmosphere and the pervasive sense of menace. The hint of the supernatural as noted above helps in this regard, but mostly it’s a matter of skillful use of single-source lighting and the ability to inject danger into scenes. The most impressive scene here is probably the imposingly large hook swinging freely about the deck of the ship. Even before you see the sailors scrambling frantically around to secure it, it’s such a palpable threat that just the sight of it is enough to make you wince. Also memorable is the death in the chain locker and its inexorable and painful doom.

Curiously a number of elements come close to elevating this beyond B-movie status. I found it intriguing how the captain specifically mentions that Merriam might well be a carbon copy of his younger self in light of how acrimonious their relationship ends up being. My wife noted that it would have been more interesting if the captain’s actions really stemmed from an absurd but consistent belief in the philosophy of absolute authority on board the ship instead of outright insanity. I also thought that the paranoia on board the ship was played out too quickly. The film is intelligent enough to raise these questions but not intelligent enough to follow through on them.

But the biggest letdown is once again the ending which ends on a hopeful note. I guess it would be a while yet before Hollywood learns to end every horror movie with at least a hint that things aren’t perfectly peachy. In this case, the ending isn’t just tonally dissonant with the rest of the movie, it is also abrupt and unsatisfying. Overall, it’s a film that does interesting things with atmosphere and shadow but not really worth going out of your way to watch.