Ghost Ship (2002)

If you haven't watched Ghost Ship, it might be a surprise when I tell you that Ghost Ship is a surprisingly good Ghosts-on-a-Boat movie. The opening scene of Ghost Ship is one of my favourite opening horror scenes of all time, and there's a reason it's so deeply beloved online. Turns out there's more to the movie than that!
It came as a surprise to me when I first watched Ghost Ship that a movie called Ghost Ship could strike the near-perfect balance between being ridiculous and unnerving. From that spectacular opening scene to the next-level nonsensical murder madness is splashed throughout the film in a way that is hard not to enjoy. There were times when I found myself feeling genuinely jumpy because the atmosphere was so eerie. Put a murder mystery on a boat and stick in some ghosts and a whodunnit element and I'm all in, all the way.
The cast also knocked it out of the park - Julianna Margulies was great, and it’s always nice seeing Emily Browning in things, even as a tiny child. I know that this movie has a lot of mythos surrounding its evolution in the filmmaking process - the original script had no supernatural elements, for example. It sounds like the exact kind of thing I’d be here for - all psychological horror, sans supernatural, people stranded at sea turning against each other - but at the expense of that amazing, out-of-this-world flashback murder montage? Never.
Rating: 8.5/10. Unabashedly. It’s silly and there’s ghosts and the whole plot twist wasn’t much of a twist, but it’s such a fun movie, and really accessible. I can see this being easy to watch with people regardless of their interest in horror.

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