DEATH SHIP (1980) REVIEW

As the nights are getting darker earlier these days as the winter draws in, Ive gotten back into viewing horror films and as i still have about 40-50 in my collection that i have never seen i decided to watch Death Ship.

MOVIE POSTER

DVD COVER

While trying to find something i hadn't seen, i remembered i had this film on dvd that id gotten of a friend at the 

CULT LABS forum through a trade, it just sat their on my self gathering dust, so i grabbed it and read the back and it said from writer Jack Hill, now having watched COFFY recently i thought cool, a Jack Hill script, popped it in the dvd player, sat back and was ready to enjoy the film. 

Here's what i thought.....

THE PLOT:

Survivors of a tragic shipping collision are rescued by a mysterious black ship which appears out of the fog. Little do they realise that the ship is actually a Nazi torture ship which has sailed the seas for years, luring unsuspecting sailors aboard and killing them off one by one.

(Source: IMDB)

THE CAST:

GEORGE KENNEDY as Captain Ashland

I like |George Kennedy, from his role in The Dirty Dozen to his role in Roger Corman's The Terror Within, here he plays a rare villain, the man who becomes possessed by the dead Captain of the Death Ship. He turns from an embittered 20 year veteran sea captain of luxury liners to a possessed loon hell bent on using the rest of the survivor's blood to power the ship. Having an actor of his standard gives the film more of a respectable edge than it is actually worth. 

RICHARD CRENNA as Trevor Marshall

Another high calibre actor, Richard Crenna is the sort of hero of the film, Neither of these two actors were at an age where they could play a hero, but Crenna pulls it off. For me i was only familiar with Richard Crenna as Col. Troutman in First Blood and it's sequels. He give another great performance. 

NICK MANCUSO as Nick

I knew the name but couldn't work out where i knew him from, after looking at his IMDB page i still have no idea how i know the name. He gives a brilliant performance as Nick and seems to gotten the shit end of the stick as all the worst things happen to him. 

SALLY ANNE HOWES as Margaret Marshall

I don't know this actress and she didn't really bring anything to the film. She plays the wife of Crenna and the Mother of his Children she just plays that...a mother. Like i said she didn't add anything to the proceedings. 

KATE REID as Sylvia

had absolutely no need to be in the film as her character was only there to get killed off. 

VICTORIA BURGOYNE as Lori

Victoria plays Lori, the girlfriend of Nick and she's pretty good in her role, being a horror film it was a change of pace to find a female character that's stronger than most instead of the screaming woman who screams every time a door closes. we don't actually find out if she dies before she's thrown of the boat. Nice body too. 

SAUL RUBINEK as Jimmy

this is an actor i am very familiar with as he played Lee Donowitz, the movie producer in True Romance and he's one of the leads in the sci-fi show Warehouse 13. Here he plays Jimmy, the band leader who is fortunate to survive the original ship wreck only to be the first killed off by the 'death ship'. For the brief time he's in the film he's pretty good. 

There are two children in the film and they are incredibly annoying. Why do horror films continue to put children in peril, and annoying kids at that and then not kill them off. 

THE DIRECTION:

Another name i'd heard was Alvin Rakoff, he moved from television direction to feature films and his direction is pretty good, there was a lot of producer interference in the making of the film, but i'll go into that in mo, but it didn't stop Rakoff's direction from being pretty good. He creates a sort of horrific scenario with shots of machines working by them selves and that just raises the tension. 

THE SCRIPT:

Jack Hill, the writer and director of films such as Coffy, Foxy Brown and Big Bird Cage, came up with the script that was shat upon but Rakoff and producers, a lot of it was changed and they removed the whole idea of Ghosts taking possession of the survivors and made the ship have a mind of its own. When watching the extras on the dvd (further down) it seems as though Hill was struck off in favour of canadian writers getting credit as the film was financed with Canadian money. Hill states that if he had directed it, the film would have been very different. But the script that was filmed is interesting, there are some obvious horror cliche's but the most interesting change to the original is that they inserted the idea that the ship was a nazi experiment ship and as im interested in the occult and the nazi experiments i think this is a plus. One thing that was fought for by Jack Hill was the omission of the infamous blood shower, unfortunately Jack was beaten by producers and the scene stayed in....

THE DVD:

The DVD release that i viewed was released by Nucleus Films, a company owned by Film maker Jake West (Doghouse) and writer Marc Morris. The Film is remastered from original vault materials and although there is still issues with quality, the picture is at times outstanding. It's Presented in a newly created Wide-screen 1.85:1 presentation and it's pretty good, the audio is presented in English 2.0 original Mono track that is great, the sound is good. 

The special Features

• Widescreen (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs
• English 2.0 (PCM Mono)
• English 2.0 (Dolby Digital Mono)
• Optional Hard Of Hearing Subtitles
• Audio Commentary by Director Alvin Rakoff 
• Stormy Seas: The Journey From Bloodstar to Death Ship: 40 minute documentary
• 3 x deleted scenes
• Bloodstar: original pages from Jack Hill's original script
• 3 x Trailers
• The 'Uncensored' bloody Shower scene
• Picture Gallery
• Trailers for 5 Nucleus Films releases 

FINAL VERDICT:

Death Ship is an enjoyable slice of 80s horror, that tries it's hardest to be The Shining at sea but misses the mark slightly. It has some pretty good performances and the direction is good. not the goriest film by any means but a fun way to pass 87 minutes. 

FILM: 6/10

DVD: 8/10