Castle Vanian Halloween Special: Haunted Houses: Ghost Ship (2002)

Another early 2000s movie makes the list. Would you say it was a good time for horror?

For this type of horror, yes. There were loads of films like The Haunting from the same era that didn’t even make it so you’ve got to count those as well. I think, with horror, it goes in cycles. In the late 80s, it was vampires. Then, it was ghosts and hauntings until zombies took over. Things fade away, then come back. With haunted house films, there’s always the odd show about hauntings but there seemed to be a glut of them around this time.

When you think of how many films didn’t even make the cut that were about haunted houses or hospitals or schools that were very good but didn’t make the top 5, it tells you how many there were to choose from.

Wanna do a quick recap of Ghost Ship for anyone who hasn’t seen it?

It starts with what looks like a terrible accident when a line decapitates half the guests while dancing on the deck. Move on forty years and a salvage ship comes across this old hulk and they think it’s their lucky day because of the gold on board. They don’t realize until later that they’ve been led there by a demon. That’s the kicker. You don’t see it coming.

I love that the intro is so happy and lovely that you weren’t sure we were watching the right movie at first because it was so nice. It’s deceptively happy, then it gets nasty very quickly. What did you think of that opening?

It sets the tone for what you’ve got coming and it was surprising. I hate when I start watching a film and it’s not what I was expecting. With Ghost Ship, what you start with is what you get. Even so, it has so many twists and turns that you don’t see coming. Plus, they kept things adult, and they didn’t dumb it down to get a lower rating. I hate it when they do that.

There were some pretty gruesome deaths. This one doesn’t shy away from gore. Did you have a favourite demise?

After the beginning where everyone’s being diced on the dancefloor… you can’t really top that. It started off at a million miles an hour and didn’t have anywhere to go. A lot of the deaths, you don’t see on screen. A lot of times, it cuts away just in time. So, although it’s very graphic, you tend to get the aftermath rather than the actual death.

No surprise, Gabriel Byrne is one of the main stars of Ghost Ship. He was pretty hot property at the time. What did you think of his performance? Of the acting in general?

It was nice to see Karl Urban in Ghost Ship – and so young too. It was before he had made it big. He was definitely part of the comic relief. Then, there’s the hardened sea captain, Murphy, played by Gabriel Byrne. He’d actually been around for a lot longer than you’d think but his popularity soared around the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Ghost Ship has a clever premise, with the demon collecting souls to ferry to Hell. And it was a nice twist at the end, when Epp (Julianna Margulies) sees Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) loading the gold onto another ship. Any thoughts?

It was clever because you didn’t see it coming. It’s like when Gabriel Byrne sees the photo and realizes what’s happened. If they’d considered the dates – the last people to board the ship had done so three weeks before, which made Ferriman’s appearance at that time suspicious. They could have worked out that he wasn’t who he seemed, but they were blinded by greed.

What are your overall thoughts on the movie?

I hadn’t seen Ghost Ship in a good few years so it was nice to watch it again. It still works and hasn’t dated because of the way they’ve done it. Because they’re out in the middle of the ocean, it’s not like they’d be relying on their phones anyway. It’s still very believable – as much as a movie about a haunted ship can be believable.