Death Ship (1980)

... aka: Blood Star
... aka: Deathship
... aka: Le bateau de la mort (The Boat of Death)

Directed by:
Alvin Rakoff

After spending 40 years at sea, luxury cruise ship Captain Ashland (George Kennedy) is on the verge of retirement... and just in the nick of time! He's burnt out, looks completely miserable and is grumpy as fuck and doesn't even want to attend the final "Over 50s" costume party on his own ship. But this is his last voyage, it's over in just a few days and he's about to hand over the reins to Co-Captain Trevor Marshall (Richard Crenna) after warning: "Maybe you'll get used to all this. I never did. Cruising around in endless circles..." Gee. Such a beacon of hope. But if it's excitement Ashland wants, it's excitement he will soon get. Retirement, though, not so much. For starters, a mysterious ship is bearing down and about to crash right into them. Said collision will knock a hole right in the control room, causing water to pour in and the ship to sink.

After brief introduction to the poorly-drawn and dull main characters and a lazily-done flurry of stolen shots from the disaster film The Last Voyage (1960) in lieu of shooting new footage, we meet up with a handful of survivors aboard a life raft the next morning. Trevor, his wife Margaret (Sally Ann Howes) and (ugh) their two young kids, Robin (Jennifer McKinney) and Ben (Danny Higham), are among them. There's also crewman Nick (Nick Mancuso) and his British lover Lori (Victoria Burgoyne), religious kook Sylvia Morgan (Kate Reid) and corny M.C. / ship entertainer Jackie (Saul Rubinek). As for Captain Ashland, he's not on the life raft at first but instead miraculously floats up from the depths of the water... and he's still alive. No one really raises an eyebrow about it either.

The life raft eventually runs into a large abandoned ship; the same ship that rammed into and sunk the cruise ship, which is strangely just anchored in the middle of the ocean. Although it's a rust bucket and there's no crew on board, it's certainly better than the alternative of bobbing up and down in the middle of the ocean on a cramped raft. Conveniently, there's even a lowered metal ladder on the side... almost as if the ship is inviting people to hop on board. Since this particular ship happens to be possessed by an evil spirit or twenty, and it thrives on victim's blood, that's exactly what's happening. And, since "Death Ship" apparently has the patience of a toddler, it wastes no time trying to waste the cast.

After almost everyone's on board, the ship tries to drown some of the guys by toppling the ladder and then attempts to kill them again by covering them with oil as they try to climb up a rope ladder. After it's unsuccessful there, it starts its own engine, raises the anchor, starts moving, wraps a wire around Jackie's ankle, lifts him up and then drops him in the water. He's then pulled under the ship and drowns. All this before the survivors even have a chance to look around! Even witnessing this clearly supernatural death, they're still in the middle of the ocean so it's either stay there and try to figure out what's going on or jump back into the ocean and die. Still, that's really no excuse for the cast to keep wandering off by themselves like morons.

It's determined that the ship is German in origin, it hasn't been occupied by humans since the 1940s and is a World War II ship that was used by the Nazis. Captain Ashland, who never quite regains his oomph after almost drowning, starts hearing German voices and then becomes possessed by the previous Captain ("No one can leave my ship!"). Other discoveries along the way include a screening room for old Hollywood musicals and propaganda films, a walk-in freezer full of Nazi corpses, a Nazi memorabilia room complete with a framed painting of Hitler, a dentist's office where gold teeth were extracted from prisoners and even a torture chamber full of dead bodies.

I've read both positive and negative reviews of Death Ship and I'm siding with the naysayers this time out. The direction, dialogue, acting, pacing and editing (including a bunch of useless split second flash forwards of what's to come wedged in here and there) are all uniformly terrible. The characters aren't the least bit interesting, the plot is underdeveloped and the director seems incapable of generating tension and suspense, leading to a film that comes off as dreary and unpleasant over creepy and scary. As far as the death set pieces are concerned, a few are fairly well done. There's a hand ground up (and ripped off) by gears, a mutation caused by poison peppermint candy (?!) and someone smashed in a fishing net trap full of skeletons. Perhaps most memorable is Burgoyne's death in a blood shower, though it's probably more memorable for the exploitative camera angles than the actual death itself. Laughably bad dialogue and some major overacting (including a hammy Kennedy) don't even help this rise to the level of guilty pleasure camp.

Worst of all is what a waste the whole thing is. The 3.5 million budget (which would be around 11.5 million these days after adjusting for inflation) afforded quite a bit in 1979 when this was filmed. It afforded effective sets / art direction and a great shooting location (both interiors and exterior) on an old ship, which makes this reasonably atmospheric almost in spite of itself. It afforded a cinematographer (René Verzier) who does what he can to give this some polish and was smart enough to spice up the countless foreboding ship shots with creative camera angles. It afforded some real actors. But, ultimately, the good that is present only makes one yearn for a better directed and written film.

Though John Robins receives screenplay credit, sources claim he didn't actually write this and was billed as such only for financial reasons through the Canadian government. Cult director Jack Hill and David P. Lewis, who are credited with the story, actually wrote the script under the title Blood Star. One of the five production companies who worked on this is called Bloodstar Productions. It was filmed in Quebec City, Gulf of Mexico and Dauphin Island, Alabama and grossed less than half of its budget in U.S. theaters.

An AVCO Embassy release, this has had numerous DVD and VHS releases over the years, starting with a video from Embassy. The DVD distributors include Scorpion Releasing (USA; they also released a Blu-ray this year though that's not what I watched), Umbrella Entertainment (Australia), Creative Films (Spain) and Nucleus Films (UK). In Stormy Seas, a 40-minute documentary feature available on the UK release, director Rakoff makes it clear that he dislikes horror films, which is pretty evident in the finished product, while Hill (rightfully) seems displeased with what they did with his script and claims he'd have taken a completely different approach. Too bad he didn't get to direct it himself.

★1/2

Draugasaga (1985) (TV)

... aka: Drauga Saga
... aka: En spøkelseshistorie (A Ghost Story)
... aka: Ghost Story
... aka: Powder Game

Directed by:
Viðar Víkingsson

At a TV studio, photographer Matti (Guðmundur Ólafsson) snaps some photos of a blonde model as the lights start flashing on and off. When he develops the film, the image of another red-haired woman briefly shows up. Soon after, the picture goes completely black and, when the negatives are checked, the redhead's image doesn't show up at all. The redhead seems to be a well-known apparition familiar to late night workers at the studio who claim she haunts the place. Graveyard shift night watchman Runolfur (Þorsteinn Hannesson) is one of several who can vouch for her existence. Luckily for him, he's about to get some help as arrogant college medical student Sonny (Kristján Franklin Magnúss) has been hired on to help with the night shift duties. But his new helper doesn't seem at all concerned with Runolfur's ghost tales, nor his advice to always take the stairs unless he wants to be trapped in the studio's unpredictable lift with the ghost.

Also frequently working late in the studio is make-up artist Elsa (Sigurjóna Sverrisdóttir), who's obsessed with old Hollywood glamour, classic movie stars and WWII era "spook fashion." She's particularly obsessed by a photograph of her beautiful, red-haired grandmother, who was "Miss U.S. Base 1942" and either died, immigrated to America or mysteriously just vanished into thin air a long time ago. Her fate being completely unclear is something that fascinates Elsa, as does the fact her mother (Kristbjörg Kjeld) claims she's dead yet refuses to discuss the cause of her death. Elsa and Sonny the new nightwatchman start hanging out in the vacant studio at night. She dresses up as her grandmother and puts her skills to use transforming Sonny into a vampire for a little role-playing fun. The two become lovers but their after hours dress up games start going a bit too far.

Becoming a little too enraptured by the fantasy Elsa initiated, Sonny decides to start dressing up as the redheaded ghost to "haunt" the studio. Elsa even helps him with the make-up and costume, at least at first. It works. After making an appearance in the photographer's studio, the haunting / ghost makes the front page news. While busy changing bathroom towels on each floor, Runolfur forgets his own advice and hops on the elevator. It becomes stuck and Sonny, impersonating the ghost, paces in front of an open crack in the door holding a sledgehammer, which ends up giving the old nightwatchman a fatal heart attack.

After Runolfur's death, Elsa refuses to help Sonny get into ghost drag, but he continues on without her. Confessing that "the guise has really taken hold of me" and that he thinks that's "fantastic," Sonny plots to scare the life out of the next nightwatchman (Rúrik Haraldsson) the studio hires and eventually turns on (and attacks) Elsa. But there's also the issue of the actual studio ghost, who apparently doesn't take too kindly to being impersonated.

Perhaps due to the short running time (just 67 minutes), there are some pacing issues and poor scene transitions here. There's little easing into Sonny's sudden slip into insanity. He's normal one minute and psycho the next and it's rather poorly handled. That said, this does have other stuff to enjoy, like some amusing dialogue, gritty texture to the photography and a well-designed, though only briefly seen, ghost. A number of the horror and suspense scenes work really well too, especially the bit taking place in the elevator and when the leading lady is pursued through the streets at night by the (real) ghost.

With younger characters who seem to want to live in the past and older characters who are having a hard time adapting to (or understanding) the present, this seems to be trying to say something, though what that is I'm not exactly sure. There are lots of allusions to the WWII era, including a photo of FDR, 1940s music and clothing and some weird fantasy scenes of Elsa imagining herself as her grandma with her American G.I. lover. The ghost is jokingly referred to as "the specter of communism" at one point due to her red hair. Communism itself was at its peak in Iceland during WWII, with popular support around 20% according to a 1958 article from Foreign Affairs.

Meanwhile, the older characters show disdain for how foul mouthed and promiscuous today's youth are, look at punk hairstyles with disgust and sigh "It's all gone queer on the television these days" while watching a music video of David Bowie performing "Boys Keep Swinging" in drag. So what does it all mean? Well, that's for you to figure out. It's 3am. I'm feeling more Ambien than analytical right now.

This was made for Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV) which, from my understanding, is kind of like the Icelandic version of PBS and the movie itself was mostly shot in their studio. The only other pre-1990 Icelandic genre films I'm aware of are Blóðrautt sólarlag (1977; "The Crimson Sunset"), Vandarhögg (1980; "Whiplash"), Húsið: Trúnaðarmál (1983; THE HOUSE), Djákninn (1988; aka "The Deacon of Dark River") and the same director's Tilbury (1987). There aren't very many, all but one were made for television and none were officially released with English subtitles.

★★1/2