Ghost Voyage (2008)

Good concept, poorly executed.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Ghost Voyage: 5 out of 10: This is a SyFy Channel movie so I am grading on a curve here. Ghost voyage starts of a bit slow but quickly builds to a surprisingly suspenseful ending.The movies plot is a little like the superior Ghost Ship. A bunch of strangers wakes up on an abandoned cargo ship with no idea where they are. A creepy and ghostly Steward gives them the rules and then fades into the background. Like some aquatic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the guests break the rules and meet various fates.Ghost Voyage overall is straightforward with okay CGI and limited gore. Director James Oxford however squeezes some decent performances and a surprising amount of tension out of the otherwise by the numbers script.The movies other strength is its eye-candy. For the ladies there is a former Calvin Klein Model (Antonio Sabato Jr.) for the gentlemen there is a troika of beauties.Lead actress Deanna Russo and ghost girl Zhasmina Toskova certainly entertain enough but my money is on Julian Berlin as the blond, husband stealing flapper. Despite a lack of nudity the ladies certainly help hold a viewers interest during a slow first half.Overall Ghost Voyage gets better as it moves along, and is entertaining enough diversion for those interested in the genre.

Another boringly humdrum straight-to-TV horror enterprise that sinks real fast in its uninteresting, rancid story. Three times it took me to eventually get through it. I simply had trouble staying awake. From the get-go everything about it is shallow (superficial characters and abysmal dialogues) with every cliché from the handbook being unashamedly used in a sleep-inducing manner. The material is lame, as there's little in the way of mystery (not much really going on) and the twist is predictably weak. It's like a rejected idea of a 'Twilight Zone' episode. The further along the mechanical story goes and eventually unfolds (remember to follow the rules and there's always a chance to re-correct your past mistakes in some other form… blah, blah) reveals how unintentionally humorous, inconsistent and mind-numbing it is. Talk about an aggravatingly languid boat trip experience. Special effects are dodgy with many clunky moments, but nothing extremely terrible and quite the usual low-budget standard you see in these presentations. So the shocks, well the supposed attempts were completely off and incredibly dull. So were the death scenes. Direction is drab, while the pacing drags and the setting never convinces. Performances are bottom of the barrel. Quite bland, forgettable and disposable. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa appears in a nothing role. Antonio Sabato Jr. makes for a lacking lead performance, so does his opposite the lovely, but empty Deanna Russo. In all, just crumby.

The opening with a group of strangers awakening to find themselves aboard an old broken down cargo vessel is sufficiently eerie enough, and the oddball spectre-like "steward" who gives the confused passengers a list of ship rules is menacing. None of them knows how they got there, or why.It's not a bad premise, sort of a Twilight Zone approach. The movie at first looks like it's going to rip off "Death Ship" and some others, but actually finds its own direction. It manages to present the mystery of what is going on, who is behind it, etc. It avoids giving up too much information too soon and guides the audience along with well-timed expository dialog and some weird discoveries aboard the spooky vessel. It throws in some ghost-like apparitions, ancient ritualistic behavior, and a "test" which is graded coldly and positively. Not bad stuff, really.But the longer the movie goes on, the weaker it gets. Many characters are so cliché and obviously marked for unpleasant fates, that it's laughable. Some of the special effects look like they were done with an Etch-a-Sketch toy. Most of the cast (fortunately those who make early exits) act at about the kindergarten play level. However, the longer-lasting people act better; and their characters have some dimension. The resolution actually shows some thought was put into it.A decent flick for a rainy weekend afternoon.

Does the movie float? Actually, yes it does. It's not that bad for a Saturday SciFi movie. It sticks to a very formulaic script. Very predictable, but at least it starts out with a solid story.A bunch of people wake up on board a strange, creepy ship. A man calling himself the Steward gives them some rules and disappears. And they all have to figure out what's going on.Lots of ghost stuff, cheap scares. CGI looking FX.But, all in all, it's really not that bad. The ending was a little too neat for my tastes.It's less gory than Ghost Ship, but if you liked that movie, you'll probably like this one.I gave it a seven rating. Kind of high for me. It's better than most of the junk SciFi usually cranks out.