Ghost Ship (1980)

 

Slow moving movie about slow moving George Kennedy who is the captain of a cruise ship.  It’s Kennedys last trip as the captain and he’s none too happy about it.  When the cruise ship is hit by a mystery freighter, only a small handful of people end up in the life raft.

Lost at sea with no provisions, they are thankful when a rusty old ship suddenly appears.  Although no one comes to answer their calls of help, the stairs are down along the side of the ship and the survivors climb up to the deck. Well most of them climb up before the stairs break and throw three of them into the ocean.  A rope ladder is found and thrown down, and they manage to get doused with oil or mud on their climb up.  Yes, they’ve entered the death ship and it has evil in store for them.

This is going for a scary atmosphere rather than straight up horror. It would have scared me as a teenager but hasn’t aged well.  The horror is fairly low key, such as the water in the shower turning red, people getting tangled in ropes that send them to their death, or machinery that operates on its own. Kennedy is probably the creepiest thing about this movie in that he’s an angry, hulking man possessed by the ship and glares at everyone he comes in contact with.