DEATH SHIP
I can't believe I'm paying late charges on this turd


  I returned the case, and came home to a voicemail message telling me that the case was empty.  Things like that happen when you rent in bulk, I guess.

How do I express how bad this movie is?  I can't, I couldn't even begin.  Here's an example of how this pooch tries to impress us in its first ten minutes: two ships are destined to collide.  In an sleepily drawn-out sequence, we see the luxury cruise liner, lights on, on a pitch-black sea in a pitch-black night.  Then we see the evil Nazi ghost ship (we know it's a ghost ship because we hear disembodied voices bark out commands in German while inanimate objects respond), on course for the cruise liner.....in the day!  Night, day, night, day...it's like dueling stock footage!  This goes on for quite some time, right up until the collision, which isn't shown, which is a shame because I was hoping it would take place during an eclipse or something so as to bring SOME resolution to this.  The cruise liner then sinks in about 45 seconds (what we see is largely lifted from other movies), with scattered survivors from all over the ship somehow managing to escape on the same lifeboat (actually an orange box).

Yeah, it's put together with pride, all right.  Pay no attention to that cool poster; the movie it's hiding is saved from complete crapitude only by the amusement I take at its awfulness.  I was originally ashamed to note that much of this was filmed in Canada, but I feel some relief that it was, more specifically, Quebec City.

Also along for the "ride" is Nick Mancuso, Richard Crenna, and Saul Rubinek (who, in dress, manner and hair, is obviously the inspiration for Adam Sandler's character in The Wedding Singer).  The characters aren't very observant; drifting about in this box, they don't even notice this huge Nazi ship nearby until it's about twenty feet away (how hard can it be to notice something like this on calm ocean waters?).

So then these losers get on to the ghost ship - they don't know it's a ghost ship yet - which lets them on with a handily lowered staircase.  Within minutes, the ship has punted no fewer than four of these people overboard; I mean, hello?  Do you want them on board or not, you stupid ship?

George Kennedy (sporting an enormous comb-over) then dons a Nazi uniform (which nobody notices is a Nazi uniform) and starts talking about how this is HIS ship, and somebody runs a film reel of Hitler, prompting one guy to start punching the screen madly...and the shower, God help us, the shower.  There's even a scene where a woman is taking a shower and the water turns to blood.  She cries out "Nick, it's blood!  It's blooooood!", sending me into gales of laughter.

What's to say, except that this movie is so, so, SO bad, it just might be worth a look for bad-movie enthusiasts.  All others need not apply.  Directed by Alvin Rakoff, and written by three guys who never wrote anything else; one look at this movie is all the evidence you need to suggest why.


BACK TO MAIN PAGE
BACK TO THE D's