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GHOST RIG
Produced by Graeme Clapperton, Bill Dale, Julian Kean
Directed by Julian Kean
Edited by Christopher Barwell
Director of Photography - Jan PesterHeather Peace .... Iona
Jaason Simmons .... Vincent
Noel Fitzpatrick .... Crawford
Kerry Norton .... Annie
Jamie Bamber .... Tom
David Rae .... Mole
Richard Norton .... 'K'
Juliet Diamond .... Sophie
Bryan Carney .... Will
Rory McCann .... EricOkay, so there's this big ship that slams into a pleasure cruise ship and it's up to George Kennedy to save everybody from the evil spirits on the ship.
What's that? What do you mean wrong movie?
Oh, right. That was Death Ship. My humblest apologies.
So, anyway the hot chick that was George Clooney's girlfriend in ER is on this ship that's haunted and.....
What?
It can't be the wrong movie. I looked at the cover and...Oh, you know what? You're right this is GHOST RIG. Sorry again. It was the cover of the DVD that threw me for a loop. Particularly since this was a 2001 release called THE DEVIL'S TATTOO.
Now MTI Video has reinvented this wheel to make it more sellable to the mass market. Go to the video store. GHOST SHIP is all rented out for the weekend. Look here's something that looks just like it and thanks to the way that the alphabet works, should be right next to it. Brilliant marketing ploy that's been done since the roadshow antics of Kroger Babb and H.G. Lewis.
The movie itself is, well it's horribly derivative of a lot of things. The basic plot is that an environmental group has decided to seize an abandoned oil rig. Seems that the company that owns the rig is going to topple it into the ocean as the base for a reef to support marine life.
Sounds noble, doesn't it?
Except the group thinks that there are trace elements of oil and other dangerous chemicals left on the rig. They are going to force the media to pay attention to them and shine the light of truth on this horrible scheme to pollute the oceans. Two minor problems. One, the entire skeleton crew of maintenance guys have been slaughtered by a demon called Legion that can transfer to a host body with just a simple bite. Once Legion leaves a host body it dies with no visible signs of what caused the death. The second problem is that one of the group of environmentalists is not what he/she seems to be.
GHOST RIG takes the idea of being trapped in a space surrounded by hostile conditions. In this case, the ocean. And there's a monster lurking around every corner. Sounds a little like ALIEN. And since the monster can jump from body to body without anyone suspecting we get a lot of John Carpenter's THE THING. They even copy the blood test scene which felt plagiaristic at best.
Most of the movie is lit to look green. I don't know if they were shooting for atmosphere or what. It made me a little queasy.
The acting is competent at best. Nothing to stand out.
It's always great to use a shapeless, possession monster because then there's no money to spend on special effects. That was smart. We get spared the agony of some lame ass creature in the last reel this way.
I will give credit where credit is due. I didn't see the ending coming at all and felt that it was very original. Unfortunately, we have to trudge through the rest of the film to get there. Be careful when renting GHOST SHIP, GHOST RIG could end up in your DVD player by mistake.
Bio Info for Douglas Waltz
In the spare time afforded him between a full time job for the local phone company, Douglas is happily married with five, that's right five, children. He is a staff writer for the Print magazine Cult Cuts and does work for the webzine (www.cultcuts.net). He also publishes his own small press zine called X-Ploitation. In addition to that he's working on an annual publication of short stories from various writers called On The Night Highways. And if that wasn't enough he's about to shoot his first short film, Phone Sex, sometime this summer.