75) Death Ship (1980)

"Where do you plan to sail her?" "Eternity."

Director

Alvin Rakoff

Cast

Richard Crenna - Trevor Marshall

George Kennedy - Captain Ashland

Nick Mancuso - Nick

Sally Ann Howes - Margaret Marshall

Jennifer McKinney - Robin Marshall

Danny Higham - Ben Marshall

If Stanley Kubrick's The Shining ditched the Colorado Rockies and set sail on the ocean, taking with it some inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho as well as any random Nazis movie, the result would be something similar to 1980's Death Ship.  

Watching this movie, I caught slight hints of these other films packed into the story. 

The less-than-enthusiastic Capt. Ashland (George Kennedy) is taking his last voyage on a glamorous cruise ship before he goes into retirement. 

With him on board is his replacement, Trevor Marshall (Richard Crenna), Marshall's wife, Margaret (Sally Ann Howes - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and their two children, Robin (Jennifer McKinney) and Ben (Danny Higham). 

Sometime during the late night while those are board are partying and the kids are in bed, a huge freighter is detected on radar heading full speed straight towards the cruise ship. 

Despite Ashland's evasive maneuvers, the cruise ship matches their heading. It's just a matter of moments before the inevitable happens. And when it does, the cruise ship sinks along with most of the passengers. 

The next day, only a small number of the cruise ship's passengers survive including Marshall and his family. 

While the survivors are adrift at sea on a life raft, the barely conscious and exhausted Capt. Ashland is discovered and rescued.

While all are adrift, a looming black freighter sails by and the survivors call out for help. 

But the small group is completely unaware that not only is the ship abandoned, it's also the same one that collided with the cruise ship at full speed. 

They find a rescue ladder hanging off the side and are able to climb aboard. 

While some officers try to climb the ladder with an exhausted and injured Ashland, it comes loose and lunges them into the water. 

Still, they all manage to climb to safety ("safety") with Ashland. 

Once on the ship, one of the surviving crewman, Jackie (Saul Rubinek), becomes entangled in a cable through what appears to be supernatural means. He's hoisted up by the ship's cranes, and then dropped into the cold ocean water below before being hoisted back up in the air beyond reach of those on deck. Wheb he's dropped again, Jackie ends up swept away by the current, and lost under the ship. 

There's not much for the shocked witnesses to do other than explore the dusty hallways within the ship, and search for food and warmth. 

What they find is antiquated items dating back to the era of World War II. But aside from that, they hear and witness hatches opening and closing by themselves, and lights turning on and off. 

While exploring the deck, Nick (Nick Mancuso), is knocked out by a swinging block moved by an unseen force. 

Elsewhere, others among the surviving few find dusty bunks and other necessities in various parts of the boat. 

As these mysterious happenings are taking place, Ashland, who's lying on one of the beds, hears a disembodied voice speaking in German. 

Marshall and Nick make the disturbing discovery that the ship they're on is an abandoned Nazi prison ship. And it's inhabited by the ghosts of Nazi officers as well as dead prisoners. 

Also, Ashland becomes possessed by one of these spirits, and declares himself the ship's captain. 

He then begins continuing the terror that once roamed the ship so many years ago. 

Now the survivors must find a way to continue their lucky streak and survive once more.    

Death Ship started off promising only to gradually decline until laying flat on its face by the end.  

The overall plot does have potential to be a fun horror/ thriller story. However, the movie loses momentum by the second act as it becomes a little too predictable and unintentionally funny. By the end, it tries hard to pick up the pace and trepidation but is only left crawling on its hands and knees trying to tie up the story on a thrilling note. 

I found myself pulled into the story once the cruise ship goes down. But by the third act, I was too close to complete disappointment, predicting with little difficulty what was going to happen next. 

Death Ship uses low or tilted camera angles for the sake of maintaining that unsettling supernatural tone. And it includes elements of voyerism in an attempt to keep the audience invested via a shower scene where a woman is nearly scared to death when blood starts spraying from the shower head instead of hot water. That scene dragged on a bit too long to the point where I laughed when I probably wasn't supposed to. It tried to top Psycho's shower scene, but it certainly didn't succeed. Nice try, though.    

There is an originality I can appreciate in creating a war time ship that is possessed by the ghosts of Nazis, turning the vessel into a monster of its own. It reminds me of those many other "killer" movies where the most mundane objects somehow become cognoscente man-eating monsters. Killer tomatoes. Killer rubber tires. Killer puppets. Killer donuts. Killer sofas. Yes...killer sofas! There's a real movie from 2019 about a killer sofa.

With the souls of dead Nazis and their prisoners giving life to the ship, I sense inspiration from The Shining. However, Death Ship was released in March of 1980, while The Shining came out in May of that same year. 

This is the kind of movie that could most likely make a suitable remake. I loved the idea of an evil ship, alive by the souls of evil, continually wreaking dread and turmoil upon other ships out on the open seas. It should be a fun viewing for fans of bottom shelf 1970s and 1980s horror cinema. Otherwise, there's reason this movie is as obscure as it is. It starts off strong, only to fizzle out a sad death by the very last scene. It's the writing that leads to disappointment, not the actors.

Alvin Rakoff, who has directed a lot of television programs, takes the director's chair. With a modest list of film directing, Rakoff has directed some well known talent including Rod Steiger in The World in my Pocket, Roger Moore in Crossplot, Peter Sellers in Hoffman, Henry Fonda, Ava Gardner, and Shelley Winters in City on Fire, and of course George Kennedy in Death Ship.  

Unfortunately, Rakoff stated he didn't care for movies like Death Ship, and the script wasn't something he was excited about. I think that shows in the final production. It's as though the film was eager to finish once the end was in sight. 

And speakin of Kennedy, he appeared in a decent number of horror movies in the 1980s, including Creepshow 2 in 1987.

The best of the horror in Death Ship comes when Trevor and Nick discover the rotten corpses of Nazis prisoners, including a tray of extracted gold teeth - a blunt reminder of horror that once really existed.

This film has promise, and it certainly has an appealing sense of dread as well as horror.

To be honest, I don't know if Death Ship maintains a cult following. If it does, great!