Day 3 of 13 Days of Halloween

Ghost Voyage (2008)

     This is a made-for-TV, SciFi channel (it was before the name change) movie. I like most of the movies that SyFy (or SciFi channel) make because they're usually fairly well made and are good entertainment for two hours. There have been exceptions to this with the most notable one being about giant mosquitoes. Ghost Voyage is one of the good ones. The basic plot is that a group of strangers wake up on a cargo ship in the middle of nowhere. None of them have any idea how they got there or why they are there. Our group is made up of a party girl/possible escort, a sleazy fourth-rate movie producer, a convict, two bumbling mob enforcers, a junkie, the son of a Russian mobster, a mechanic and an art dealer. The only other person on board is The Steward (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) who proceeds to give the passengers three rules. 1) Do not breach any closed doors. 2) Do not refuse a request from any of the crew. 3) No smoking. The last one seems a bit random. The movie is about this group of people trying to figure out what's going on.

Here are the deaths in order (along with important plot points):

1. The convict is killed by a smoke monster because he goes on deck to smoke.

2. The junkie refuses to give his drugs up to The Steward and is promptly killed by one real freaky looking chick.

3. The party girl and the producer open the door to the captain's quarters. While they start to have sex, she gets pulled into the mirror headboard which then explodes and kills them both.

   During this, the rest of the group are trying to find anybody else on the ship. There is nobody else but, the cargo hold is full of funerary objects from many cultures.

4. The mob enforcers chase The Steward through the ship. They then pour a flammable liquid onto the closed door (presumably between them and The Steward) and proceed to light it on fire. They get killed by a huge flame monster.

   After this, The Steward appears before the other three and informs them that they haven't broken any rules so that's why they're still here. They then figure out that they're already dead and are on this voyage to redeem themselves because they committed some sin while they were alive. they get on a funerary boat that was in the cargo hold hoping it will carry them to safety. It soon becomes clear that the boat won't carry all three so, the Russian guy hits the mechanic in the head to in an attempt to throw him overboard, the art dealer attacks the Russian guy to save the mechanic and she is thrown overboard, the mechanic then jumps in after her. 

5. The Russian guy thinks that he'll survive only to be eaten/dragged under/killed by strange water creatures.

   The storm abates and the skies clear when the mechanic and art dealer break the water's surface. They are then shown meeting for the first time? in front of her gallery yet, there is a sense of familiarity between them.

     The only way for a soul, at least on this ship,to be redeemed is to selflessly try to save another's life. The film ends with The Steward informing a new group of passengers the rules.

Pros:

Good story with passable special effects.

The leads are engaging and don't make the really stupid decisions that audiences like to mock them for.

Cons:

The convict seemed like a throw away character as we learn almost nothing about him and he dies like ten or so minutes in.

The last rule seemed to be included specifically to kill the convict off as no one else attempts to smoke.

Overall Rating: 3.7/5