Ghost Ship

Director Steve Beck follows up his good-looking fiasco Thir13en Ghosts with another horror that favours style over substance. A hackneyed and unsophisticated morality tale - where greed is inevitably rewarded with tragedy - it revolves around skipper Gabriel Byrne and his salvage team who think they've struck gold when they discover a mysterious, loot-filled cruise liner that's been lost at sea since the 1960s. In fairness, this grisly take on the Mary Celeste legend opens promisingly with an outrageously bloody effects-explosion that defines the mood with a jugular-grabbing jolt. Unfortunately, the ineffectual performances (particularly from an unconvincing Julianna Margulies) and threadbare plot effectively eliminate further tension. Beck desperately replays his key gory moment in an attempt to keep the action afloat, but, instead of providing a lifeline, this simply emphasises what turgid nonsense the rest of the movie really is.