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

Creepshow 2 (1987)

... aka: Creepshow II

Directed by:
Michael Gornick

The EC Comics-inspired anthology Creepshow (1982) was a modest hit in theaters and did good business on home video and TV, so it was inevitable much of the same team would return for a sequel. This was once again produced by Richard P. Rubinstein and Laurel Entertainment. Tom Savini again helped work on the effects and appears in a cameo, though primary makeup fx duties were assigned to Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero and Ed French (Savini was merely a consultant). Original Creepshow director George A. Romero is back, but this time only as a writer and, again, adapting Stephen King short stories, two of which had not yet been published. Unlike the original, which contained five tales plus linking segments and ran two hours, this one only contains three stories and links and runs an hour-and-a-half, though five tales were originally planned. One of the discarded stories (“The Cat from Hell”) was later used for TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE (1990) instead. Tapped to direct this time was longtime Romero collaborator Gornick, who had shot earlier GAR hits like DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) and the original Creepshow. This would be Gornick's feature directorial debut, though he'd directed four episodes of Laurel's Tales from the Darkside TV series earlier.

First up is “Old Chief Wood'nhead.” After thirty years running a general store in Dead River near an Indian reservation, elderly Ray Spruce's (George Kennedy) wife Martha (Dorothy Lamour) thinks it's time to finally close up shop. For starters, paying customers are few and far between in the dying desert town. But mostly, the poor locals are purchasing things on credit and have yet to pay them back. Indian chief Ben Whitemoon (Frank Salsedo) shows up with a collection of valuables from his people for them to hold as collateral, but that glimmer of hope is extinguished when Ben's arrogant grandson Sam (Holt McCallany) and a couple of his buddies (Don Harvey, David Holbrook) break in to rob them so they can run off to Hollywood. Both Ray and Martha are needlessly killed in the process. What the robbers don't count on is the wooden storefront Indian chief miraculously springing to life and enacting revenge with arrows, a tomahawk and scalping.

Tale #2 is “The Raft.” Four pot-smoking college kids (Daniel Beer, Jeremy Green, Paul Satterfield and Page Hannah, sister of Daryl) take a trip out to a scenic country lake, which has a grounded raft in the middle. They decide to brave the cold and swim out there to, uh, smoke more weed, I guess, and then find themselves trapped by a flat black creature they describe as looking like a giant oil slick but I describe as looking like a giant garbage bag. Properties of the creature are comparable to The Blob in that it can ooze between cracks and such and then quickly dissolve victims with an acidic substance. One-by-one the “teens” manage to get themselves killed. What this leaves out of the story that would have helped some in the plausibility department (especially with the first kill) is that the creature possesses a mesmeric quality using kaleidoscopic light that it uses to entrance victims.

Finally, we get “The Hitch-Hiker.” Wealthy, adulterous housewife Annie Lansing (Lois Chiles) oversleeps at her lover's place and must rush home late one night so her controlling lawyer husband doesn't get suspicious. On the way there, she loses control of her car after dropping a lit cigarette and accidentally runs over a man (Tom Wright) on the side of the road wearing a raincoat. Instead of helping or going to the cops, she decides to speed on home and pretend like nothing happened. But, much to her horror, the hideously bloodied victim doesn't leave her with that option when he returns from the grave to settle the score.

None of these three tales are really standouts. The first is entirely predictable and basically just zips through three kills (two of which are off-screen) in a non-suspenseful fashion after the initial premise is set up. The second is burdened by a silly / cheap-looking monster, bad acting and unlikable characters. The third gets repetitious and monotonous before it ends. But each story does at least have some merit, especially the Indian design in the first, some good gory / gooey kills in the second and plenty of blood (the undead hitcher gets shot repeatedly, run over and backed over countless times and even has his head smashed against a tree) and Chiles' performance in the third.

Romero's script somehow manages to represent both the best and worst of his screen-writing abilities. The goons in the first story – just like the military men in his DAY OF THE DEAD – are insufferably obnoxious and irritatingly over-the-top. There are better ways to make us hate people than have them maniacally cackle, scream all of their dialogue and overact. On the flip side, this has some instances of unexpectedly witty banter, like the conversation between Annie and her paid gigolo lover (David Beecroft) that opens the third segment. The last story also features King in a cameo as a dimwitted truck driver.

As far as the direction is concerned, Gornick is certainly no match for Romero. The original had a real comic book flair to it thanks to colorful presentation, vibrant lighting and clever use of comic book frames throughout. In between the stories here we mostly get some cheap animation featuring a Crypt Keeper-like “Creep” (voiced by Joe Silver) making macabre comments and a little boy named Billy who religiously reads Creepshow and lures some bullies into a trap where they get eaten by giant, carnivorous plants. Though these bits are OK they're simply not as stylish or memorable as the visual presentation used by Romero in the original. However, to be fair, the original also had twice the budget this film had.

While this didn't completely bomb in theaters (making 14 million on a 3.5 million budget), it didn't come close to matching the success of the first and thus did not prompt other Creepshow theatrical features. In 2006, Ana Clavell and James Glenn Dudelson made the much cheaper and much hated Creepshow 3 after making another unofficial, even more hated Romero “sequel:” Day of the Dead 2: Contagium (2005). You're better off pretending those two don't even exist. There's been talk of a “reboot” for years now but nothing has happened.

A soundtrack album of Les Reed and Rick Wakeman's score is available through Waxwork Records. Also available on the Divimax Special Edition DVD is the 32-minute documentary Nightmares in Foam Rubber, which features lots of behind-the-scenes footage plus interviews with Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger about their fx work on the film. They also discuss Ed French either quitting or being fired (they're a bit vague about it) and how Nicotero should have received his fx credit as he did more of the actual work. It's also revealed that Patricia Tallman (soon to star in Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead) played Hannah's role during her entire death scene as the lake water was so frigid they needed a stunt woman.

★★