Movie Details
| Title: | Death Ship | |
| Director: | Alvin Rakoff | |
| Year: | 1980 | |
| Genre: | Horror | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 02.03.10 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 02.03.10 | Home DVD | This Screening is part of event: Horror Movie Night Another Wednesday, another Horror Movie Night. This one was a movie that I thought was about sea-bound zombie Nazis. But that ended up not being the case. It's more about a former Nazi vessel that's possessed by... the spirit of Nazi-ism?... and cruises the seas looking for victims. I started this movie pretty tired, and it sapped my remaining strength pretty quick. George Kennedy's super-pissed-for-no-reason cruise-ship-captain character was fun to watch, and we got a big kick out of the fact that several key plot moments came about because a little ginger boy had to pee. Seriously. (Also, I swear there was a scene where the kid was wearing a training bra.) But other than those elements, the movie was a lot of sequences where inanimate objects ostensibly moved in a menacing manner. The entire thing was less than 90 minutes, but there were so many sequences where nothing happened (or a little something happened, but it happened very slowly) that I ended up struggling to make it to the end. This would make a great Horror Remix entry. Oh, I just remembered the one moment I really, really liked. Mild spoilers below. Shortly after George Kennedy and the other survivors get on the Nazi ship, he's already getting a bit possessed by the ghost of the former Nazi captain. He and the first mate from the cruise ship (Richard Crenna) are in the Death Ship's control room, and Kennedy starts giving this big speech about how he's the captain of this vessel and no one is going to take it from him. Crenna then asks him where he plans to take the ship, and Kennedy stares into the distance, the camera cuts to a mid-range profile shot, and he wistfully intones "Into eternity, Marshall. Eternity." It's a legitimately powerful moment, and if I were editing together a montage of the HMN movies I watch this year (hmm... now that's an idea...) this would definitely be featured prominently. |