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| Bet it took them hours to come up with that tagline. |
In 1962, the Italian ocean liner, Antonia Graza, is at sea, filled with hundreds of wealthy passengers who dance to the song, Senza Fine, sung by the beautiful Francesca. However, this serene scene quickly tuns gruesome when someone throws a lever that unspools a razor sharp wire cord, only for it to snap and whip across the exterior dance floor. Except for a young girl who was dancing with the kindly captain, all of the dancers are sliced straight through and literally fall apart where they stand. In present day, the crew of the Arctic Warrior, a small salvage vessel, successfully brings in a ship that sabk out in the open ocean and are paid handsomely for their job. While they're celebrating at a bar, they're approached by Jack Ferriman, a Canadian weather service pilot, who shows them a photo of a floundering vessel he recently discovered in the Bering Sea. After talking it over amongst themselves, the crew decides to go for it, despite its being very far out of their way, and Ferriman is also able to talk them into letting him come with them. One rainy night, they find the ship, nearly running into it when it suddenly appears in front of them, and the Warrior's captain, Murphy, recognizes it as the Graza, which has become a maritime legend since it disappeared without a trace forty years before. Except for Ferriman and Greer, the first mate, the crew investigates the abandoned ship, finding evidence that others have stumbled across it recently. At one point, Munder, one of the Warrior's mechanics, falls through the rotting floor of a hallway and, when trying to help him up, Maureen Epps briefly sees a little girl in the ballroom down below. The next day, the crew learns that the Graza is sinking from a large hole ripped in its hull, and the current is taking it towards some small islands that will finish it off. Despite the daunting task, they attempt to seal up the tear so they can tow it in, but as they spend more time on the ship, the crew sees and hears strange and unsettling things, as well as discovers some bodies that have only been there for a month, at most. Finding large crates of gold bars in the cargo hold, they decide to take them and leave the ship behind, but before they can, the Warrior is destroyed by a propane explosion that kills Santos, who was trying to fix the engine. Now, they have no choice but to repair the Graza and wait to be rescued. However, not all of the entities aboard the ship are benevolent, and as Epps and the others learn of its dark past, it slowly become clear that their being stranded may not have been accidental.
Ghost Ship began life as a script by Mark Hanlon called Chimera, which was originally conceived as more of a psychological thriller, something along the lines of The Shining on an abandoned cruise ship, and would have left the possible supernatural elements more ambiguous. In fact, according to Julianna Margulies, who starred in the movie as Epps, this early version of the screenplay was what attracted the cast to sign on in the first place. But, by the time they arrived in Australia to begin filming, the script had been severely overhauled. Many story elements from the first script (the gold, the abandoned ship slowly sinking, etc.) were retained, but rather than a psychological thriller, the movie was now the very gory, full-on supernatural horror flick that it is. Margulies said that she and the other actors were not at all thrilled by this radical change but, by that point, there was no getting out of it, so they just had to suck it up and do the best job they could. As we'll see, the acting and the characters are adequate but they're far from enough to keep the movie from being rather ho-hum.
If Epps is like Ripley and Murphy is analog to Dallas, Dodge (Ron Eldard) and Munder (Karl Urban) are kind of like the movie's version of Parker and Brett, in that they're the two most blue collar members of the crew; in this case, they're a pair of constructionists who are almost always paired up. Also, like Val and Earl in Tremors, they have a habit of deciding things with rock-paper-scissors, which Munder always loses. They're first seen helping out Epps in welding up a tear in the ship they're towing in the opening, and when Jack Ferriman's offer is discussed amongst the group at the bar, Munder decides it would be worth their while, since it would be an even split, which is also enough to get Dodge onboard with the plan. But, once they find the ship, Munder may start to regret taking the job. First, he falls through a rotted patch of floor in a hallway and is narrowly saved from falling to his death down in the ballroom below. Then, when they discover the Graza's condition and the fact that they've got three days to do the necessary repairs, he admits that it's a lot of work to be done in a short amount of time. Regardless, they get to it, only for them to find that the engine room is flooded, and when they try to contact Epps about it, they hear the sound of Francesca singing over their walkie-talkie. Thinking that Epps is playing a prank, they use their walkie-talkie to lure her and Ferriman into the galley and scare them both. When they and the others learn about the gold, as well as the bodies in the laundry room, both Dodge and Munder are all for leaving the Graza behind and taking the gold. But then, they end up stranded and lose Santos in the process. Dodge immediately takes his anger and grief out on Ferriman, attacking him and blaming him for everything (little does he know how right he is), with Greer having to restrain him. In the very next scene, the distraught Greer punches Munder right in the face when he calls him out for griping that everyone should have listened to him earlier.
As the Arctic Warrior's mechanic, Santos (Alex Dimitriades) has the most antagonistic relationship with Murphy, telling him that the ship's engine is in need of an overhaul, only to either be ignored or told to overhaul it himself while they're out at sea. Also, when they're going through a storm, Santos spots something on the sonar that appears on one sweep and is gone the next. At first, Murphy doesn't believe him, until he sees the image for himself. Santos is later seen complaining while he's working on the Warrior's engine, saying that Murphy's motto of, "The only plan in this business is that there is no plan," makes no sense and that he'll find someone else to fix his boat some day. He's ranting to a picture that you, initially, might think is of someone special waiting for him back home, but it turns out to be of his car. Like everyone else, Santos is all for getting out with the gold and manages to overhaul the engine so they can get home as fast as possible. But, right after he tells Greer to fire up the engines, he smells gas and turns around to realize that it's coming from an opened up propane tank. He yells to warn Greer but it's too late, and he's killed instantly when the propane ignites, destroying the Warrior. However, that's not the last time Santos is seen, as his burned apparition appears to Murphy, threatening to take him down with him and causing him to attack Epps by making him see her as him, which leads to Murphy getting thrown into the fish tank.
Obviously, Ferriman uses the gold as a means of appealing to people's inherent greed and get them to commit sin so he could brand them, but I don't know why, if he wanted the Warrior's crew to repair the Graza, he led them to the cargo bay where they found the gold. Did he think they were not going to forgo their original purpose and try to leave with it? Maybe he used it as an excuse to destroy their boat and strand them on the Graza so he could add their souls to the haul as well, but that seems like a lot of work and he could have just done that once they finished repairing the Graza anyway. Regardless, Ferriman is forced to show his hand when Epps has Dodge keep him on the bridge while she's down below in the engine room. He mocks Dodge for his dog-like loyalty and obedience to Epps, as well as for not having the gumption to admit his feelings for her. When Dodge still won't let him pass, Ferriman attacks him and Dodge fires on him with a rifle, thinking he killed him. But, Ferriman kills Dodge offscreen, takes his form, and tries to talk Epps out of blowing up the ship by convincing her that they could use the gold to create a new life for themselves. Epps easily sees through his ruse, so Ferriman drops his disguise and tries to make a bargain with her, allowing her to live if she doesn't interfere with his plan. But, despite his efforts, Epps detonates the explosives, sinking the ship, freeing the souls, and apparently destroying him when his body is blown apart in the blast. But, when Epps reaches the mainland at the end of the movie and is about to be taken to the hospital, she sees Ferriman loading the gold onto the cruise ship that rescued her, now planning to use it in the same manner he did the Graza.
There only three ghosts aboard the Graza who have significant roles in the story. One of them is Katie (Emily Browning), the ghost of a young, British girl who was taking the Graza to join her parents in New York. But, like the other passengers and crewmen, she died in the mutiny for the gold, hung from a rope in her cabin. She's the first ghost whom the characters see, appearing to Epps several times, and tries to stop them from loading the gold onto the Warrior, only to be restrained by Ferriman. She finally speaks to Epps when she investigates her cabin. Katie tells Epps her story, about how she knows that her parents are dead as well, and is about to explain what;s going on, but Ferriman's influence stops her. Eventually, though, Katie shows Epps what happened, revealing Ferriman's sinister nature to her. And when the ship is sunk, Katie helps Epps make it to the surface before saying goodbye and joining all of the other souls in moving on to heaven. The Graza's kindly captain (Bob Ruggiero), who's shown dancing with Katie during the opening, only to get sliced up by the sharp wire that flies across the deck, appears a couple of times to Murphy in his cabin. After they become stranded on the Graza, and the despondent Murphy wanders into the cabin to drown his sorrows, the captain appears to him, encouraging him to drink up and lamenting the loss of Santos with him. He also tells Murphy of the Graza's encounter with the Lorelei before its disappearance and shows him a photo of the one survivor they rescued. This is how Murphy learns about Ferriman's true nature but he's unable to warn the others before he meets his untimely demise. Finally, Francesca (Francesca Rettondini), the sexy singer in the ship's ballroom, is the one sinful soul who is very active onboard. She's shown to have pulled a double-cross on the one crewman who killed his comrades after they massacred everyone for the gold, shooting him square in the head. But then, Ferriman turned on her, impaling her through the head with a big hook down in the cargo hold and marking her. Under Ferriman's bidding, her spirit seduces and entices Greer when he comes across, dancing with him before drawing him to her with the promise of sex. Instead, though, she tricks him into falling to his death down an elevator shaft.
The visual department is, for the most part, where Ghost Ship is at its strongest. The production design by Graham Walker is top notch, both for the scenes set in 1962 when the Antonia Graza was in its lovely prime and in the present day scenes, when it's an old, rundown, spooky ship. It manages to be both claustrophobic and confined in its relatively small cabins, hallways, and corridors, as well as have a sense of scale with the large, expansive bow and foredeck (the one bit of exterior set that was constructed), the ballroom, the cargo hold, and the engine room, the latter of which is flooded for the entire movie. Everything inside the ship is dark and rotted, filled with a lot of water, either in standing pools or dripping with it, and covered with seaweed and algae, giving the impression that it's been floating out in the ocean for decades. It does have something of an atmosphere about it. It may not be full-on creepy but there is an uncomfortable feeling about it, particularly when the characters start finding evidence that hint at something sinister having happened, like a razor blade covered with dried blood in the captain's cabin and bullet casings at the bottom of the empty swimming pool. The cinematography by Gale Tattersall, who also shot Thirteen Ghosts and other movies like Virtuosity and Tank Girl, and went on to work extensively on House, is very good as well. Even after they get the lights inside the Graza working, a lot of the scenes in there are rather dim, with many shafts of light from their flashlights and sunlight streaming through the portholes. There are often rippling shadow and light patterns from the ocean outside and a number of scenes have a cool, light-blue look to their lighting scheme. By contrast, the scenes set in 1962 are much more vividly colorful and pleasing to the eye, and there are exterior shots of the ocean that capture both its beauty, such as some featuring a lovely, golden sunset, and its potentially destructive side, like when it's rough due to a storm. And the little bit of underwater photography featured in the film looks quite nice as well.
Although Steve Beck never worked in music videos, he employs a lot of editing that's reminiscent of them. There are a number of moments in the movie where the action will speed up and then slow down, and slow-motion is used pretty extensively for dramatic effect. The main action of Katie's flashback to what happened back in 1962 is done in a slow fashion that makes it feel very dream-like, and the very end of the movie, when Epps sees that Ferriman has survived, is also done in slow-mo. Normally, this kind of stuff annoys me, as it comes off as distracting, but in this instance, I didn't care. There are some bits of editing that Beck uses to show the passage of time when the crew is stranded on the Antonia Graza that I do genuinely like, such as some dissolves to moonlight shining on the ocean and one that goes from a close-up pan of some Greek mythology-style wallpaper, to a brief shot of Katie dancing in the ballroom, photographed through the now see-through wallpaper, the moonlight on the waves, a dark exterior shot of the ship, and finally to a despondent Murphy in the captain's cabin.
The boat used for the Arctic Warrior was the only real one employed for the whole film. For the exterior shots of the Graza, the visual effects company, Photon VFX, created a massive, 35 foot-long model of the ship and combined it with live-action and digital elements to make it look as real as possible. As you can see, that miniature is breathtaking, to say the least. In fact, when it was taken out to Moreton Bay for some location photography, the sight of it attracted quite a number of onlookers. And the shots where the live-action Warrior is sitting in the water next to the Graza look very believable, like that ship does completely dwarf the towing vessel, and you have to strain to see the separation of the elements in those shots. However , the other visual effects created for the movie are a mixed bag. Some of the explosions look a bit fake (there are a handful of nice, physical effects used for such shots, though) and there are some instances of bad green screen work and compositing, most notably in the scene where the Warrior blows up and Epps, after getting blown back by the force of the blast, dives down into the water to save her crew. Even before that, there's a really bad bit of green screen when Epps sees Katie on an upper deck behind there. There's another scene where Greer is in the ballroom and it suddenly reverts to the way it was back in 1962 around him, and while the digital work used to create those visuals isn't that bad, the compositing of Isaiah Washington into that shot looks off (according to Dale Duguid, the creative director for Photon, that was the hardest effect in the whole movie). Fortunately, there's not an egregious amount of CGI in the film, but what is here runs the gambit from looking quite good, like when "Dodge" morphs into Ferriman and the shots of the freed spirits rising to heaven at the end (that's actually quite a beautiful visual), to passable, like when her locket passes through Katie's hand, to pretty bad, like when the swimming pool fills up with blood in one scene and when Ferriman's body gets blown apart by the explosion in the climax.
Another thing Ghost Ship has going for it is a plethora of gruesome gore and makeup effects (many of which were courtesy of KNB), with the movie's opening, which many consider to be the highlight, being absolutely full of them. After the wire slices across the Graza's exterior dance floor, you see people literally falling apart, their torsos and limbs separating from each other, as they feel to the floor in a big, gory mess. You then see some of them still trying to move, despite having been sliced in half, as well as dismembered body parts wriggling around with reflex actions and lots of gore and innards littering the floor underneath them. And as if that weren't enough, you also see the top half of the captain's head fall off. Some of these effects, including the latter, are a combination of practical and digital work, with varying degrees of success, but it's still an effectively gory way to open the movie. While it never reaches another level of spectacle like that, you still get plenty more guts, gore, and grisly images. Among them are the blood slowly but surely pouring out of the bullet-holes in the swimming pool until it fills it up (again, most of that is badly dated digital work), followed by visions of corpses floating around in it; the recently-murdered bodies Epps and Ferriman discover in the laundry room; the disgusting masses of maggots Munder and Dodge find themselves eating in one scene; the specter of Santos with the burn marks on him; Katie's shriveled, hanging corpse; Greer's impaled body on some mangled pieces of metal at the bottom of a shaft; the assortment of sheer carnage you see play out in Katie's flashback to what happened in 1962, with bodies lying in pools of blood, people getting sliced with straight razors, passengers shot execution-style, and one guy getting a big hole shot right through his noggin (Francesca getting a big hook through her head is definitely the highlight of this sequence); Munder getting crunched up when he gets caught in the engine room's gears, with Epps finding his various body parts lying in a heap on the room's flooded floor; and a nasty, gaping bullet-hole that Dodge puts into Ferriman when he attacks him.
The cast may have been disenchanted with how they ended up making a gory horror movie rather than the psychological thriller they signed up for but, I think it's a good thing the filmmakers decided to make the movie as gruesome as it is; otherwise, there would be even less to say about it. For all of the money they spent on it, Ghost Ship doesn't have much to its core concept that you haven't seen done before. In fact, the ghosts themselves aren't very memorable. Other than Ferriman, Francesca is the only malevolent entity inhabiting the ship, seducing and enticing Greer to his doom, but except for a brief glimpse of her as a shriveled, rotten hag (similar to the woman Jack Torrance unknowingly made out with in The Shining), she looks like a completely normal person. The same goes for the spirits of Katie and the Graza's captain, who only have a paleness to them that hints at their ghostly nature, with Katie also having solid objects pass through her. Besides that, you have the typical haunted house tropes of doors, levers, and other objects moving by themselves, a fair number of jump-scares (one of which is a prank being pulled by Dodge and Munder, which is also a cliche), gross-out moments involving rats and maggots, and visions of blood oozing and streaming out of parts of the ship. There's also a theme of sin, with Ferriman using the gold to appeal to people's inherent greed so he can entice them to kill each other and mark them, as well as how the main characters' deaths are tied in with their own, personal sins: Greer's being lust, Murphy's being alcohol, Munder gambling with rock-paper-scissors and losing, and Dodge "murdering" Ferriman. Interesting, but not much is done with it. And speaking of Ferriman, there's the revelation that he's an evil, soul-collecting demon who is using the Graza's contain numerous souls until he can take them all back to hell. Again, interesting idea, but the movie is so typical and uninspired that, when you do find out the truth, it's hard to care that much. It doesn't help that Ferriman is a pretty weak villain who doesn't get to do much other than the aforementioned haunting activity, control the sinful spirits to do his bidding, and finally attack Dodge and Epps in ways that don't inspire much tension, only to be "defeated" rather easily. Had the story been better, I think the notion of Epps sinking the Graza and releasing all of the souls Ferriman had trapped there would have been more impactful. As it stands, it's a really saccharine notion that, I'll admit, does manage to make me feel something, but I think that's only due to the really lovely visuals of the souls heading to the surface and becoming part of the Northern Lights, Katie saying a silent goodbye to Epps before she moves on, and the really nice music that plays. But then, you have that ending, which makes you roll your eyes that they couldn't, for once, not put in a sequel-bait.
Ghost Ship opens with a very serene scene of the Antonia Graza cruising the ocean in 1962, the passengers enjoying some slow, romantic dancing, as Francesca beautifully sings Senza Fine in the ballroom. Everyone is enjoying themselves, save for young Katie, who's by herself and bored, with nothing to do other than work a little word puzzle. But then, the kindly captain offers her his hand for a dance and she takes him up on it, enjoying herself much more now. The lovely scene doesn't last, though, as someone throws a lever that slowly unspools a very thing and razor-sharp wire that stretches taut near those dancing on the exterior dance floor. When it gets to the end of it, the wire snaps loose and whips through the space, slicing off paper lamps and boquetes before heading straight for the dancers. Before anybody knows what happened, it goes right through them and, by the time it reaches the other side and holds, is dripping with blood. For a few moments, everyone stands there in shock, wondering what just happened, but it's clear from all of the blood that dots the wire and the mechanism that works it that few of them have come out unscathed. The extent of the damage becomes clear, as everyone collapses, their torsos and extremities coming apart in heaps of gore and internal organs. By the time everyone has collapsed to the floor, it's a total massacre, save for Katie and the captain. But, when Katie looks up at the captain's face, she finds that he shielded her from the wire, when the entire top half of his head falls off, leaving a bloody stump above where his lower jaw is still attached. Katie watches his body collapse to the floor and lets out a horrified scream, as the film cuts to an wide shot of the ship before panning down into the water.
The movie switches to present day, to the Arctic Warrior towing in a large barge. However, they're having trouble, as the barge is taking on water and dragging badly. On the back of the Warrior, Epps, Munder, and Dodge are trying to alleviate the problem, when the starboard engine blows out. On the bridge, Greer tells Murphy that they need to either shorten the tow or cut the barge loose altogether; Murphy then radios Epps to get to the barge and see what the problem is. Epps hooks herself to the towline and quickly zips across it to the barge. There, she goes down into the port floater, finding a large tear in the wall there, and radios that it will flood completely in five minutes. Hearing this, Murphy tells Epps to cut the barge loose but Epps isn't having it, as it took them three months to get it in the first place. She cuts herself loose of the line, drops down into the water, and prepares to hammer a section of sheet metal over the tear. Munder and Dodge, who've made their way to the barge as well, see no choice but to jump in and help her. Munder activates his blowtorch and uses it to weld the metal after Epps pounds it into place, all while Murphy yells at them over Epps' walkie-talkie, which is still hanging from her line. Despite Murphy's threats to come down there and kick her ass, she and the boys manage to weld the tear and save the barge, ensuring their payment.
While they're celebrating at a bar, they're approached by Jack Ferriman and his offer to help him salvage a large ship he says he's found floundering in the Bering Sea. After some discussion, they decide to go for it, and the Warrior sets out to sea again. One night, as they plow through a heavy rainstorm, Santos is at the helm, jamming to the metal song, I'll Stand, while everyone else is down below, hanging out. For a brief moment, Santos spots a large image up ahead on the sonar, only for it to be gone the next time the hand comes around. Regardless, he calls Murphy up to the bridge so he can get a look at it. Initially, Murphy doesn't see anything and writes it off as a mistake, either in the sonar or on Santos' part, only for the image to reappear. He radios Dodge to man the bow light and, as Epps joins them on the bridge, Murphy attempts to contact the vessel. He gets no response and the image disappears from the sonar, apparently indicating that it was just a glitch. Suddenly, the form of an enormous ship appears in front of them and Santos quickly throws the engine in reverse. This throws Dodge over the bow and, while he's able to hang on, he's nearly crushed against the hull of the ship. The Warrior's bow bangs into the side of the ship, throwing everybody onboard around and flinging Munder out of his bunk below. Finally, the reverse backs the Warrior away, as everyone is able to see what they almost hit, and they cruise past its side, illuminating it with the bow light, Murphy realizes it's the fabled Antonia Graza. He again tries to contact it but gets no response, and as everyone looks at it in awe, he tells them how it's been missing since 1962 and has become a ship every mariner worth his salt hopes to find. He decides to board her immediately.
Murphy leads a boarding party that consists of everyone but Greer, Santos, and Ferriman onto the Graza, using their crane to lift them up to the foredeck. There, Murphy tells them to watch their step, given the condition of the ship, and leads them to the door across from the bow. They note that the superstructure is okay and that the lifeboats and life preservers are gone, even though no survivors were ever found. Once inside, they make their way through the dark corridors into a lounge area. While Epps, Munder, and Dodge make jokes about it, Murphy tells them to have some respect. They hear some ticking and round a corner to find a clock on the wall that's still working. As Munder looks at it, the pendulum suddenly sticks and he reaches out to touch it, only to jump back when it loudly chimes the time. The sounds of it and their ensuing laughter echo throughout the bowels of the ship, and they then head on to find the bridge, with Munder getting aggravated at the others for teasing him. None of them notice Katie's word puzzle on a nearby table, which spells out, WELCOME A BORED. They climb up some metal stairways and find a large metal door that Murphy figures should lead them to the bridge. With some effort, he manages to turn the rusted hatch handle, which leads to some loud creaking and groaning sounds echoing through the ship. Aboard the Warrior, Ferriman and Greer hear this over his walkie-talkie but Greer has found himself unable to speak with Murphy with it while they've been inside. Once the door's open, Munder decides to take the lead, leading them down a dark hallway, with standing water on the floor. Suddenly, Munder goes right through a patch of the floor, Epps just barely managing to grab him before he falls to his death in the ballroom below. Murphy and Dodge hold onto her legs, as Epps tries to pull up the panicking Munder, when she looks over and spots Katie standing on the steps in the ballroom. She briefly looks at Munder and, when she looks back on the stairs, the girl is gone. The others then manage to pull Epps and Munder back, Murphy angrily admonishing the latter for not watching his step before taking the lead back.
On the bridge, which is as rundown and dripping wet as everywhere else on the ship, with algae lining the edges of the windows, Dodge finds a dead bird in the corner of one of them, while Munder finds that the compass is dead and that the helm is stuck fast. Noting that the fuel tanks are empty and that the ship's gear lever is up to maximum, Dodge figures it must have kept going at full speed until it was completely dry. In the back of the bridge, Murphy calls for Epps, telling her he's looking for the log and that they should get the documentation back on the Warrior. While talking to her, he notices that she looks disturbed but, when he asks her about it, she tells him that she's perfectly fine. Back in the main part of the bridge, Dodge finds a digital watch, but when Murphy sees it, he figures it doesn't matter that others have recently found the ship, as it's legally theirs now. He tells them that they best head back to the Warrior, get some sleep, and prepare to tow the Graza back at dawn. On the Warrior's bridge, Murphy says that he plans to tow it back, despite how much smaller the Warrior is and with the engine problems they're having. He adds that the ship's anchors are gone, so they have no way of keeping it there so they could go for more trawlers. Greer figures that it would take them at least two weeks to get the Graza back but figures it would be worth it, given the money they could get it for it. Later, on the deck, Epps can't get the image of the girl she saw out of her head. She tells Ferriman of it when he brings her a jacket and a cigarette, and he, in turn, tells her that he's seen weird things when he's been flying. She then heads on to bed.
The next day, after they use scuba equipment to inspect the Graza's hull, they find that it has a hole and is slowly sinking. Inside the Warrior, Murphy tells them that he thinks the Graza sustained that damage within the last week and he also points out that the current is taking it towards some islands it could crash into and then sink for good. He tells them that they have three days to repair the ship so they can tow it and Munder points out how much work it would be for such a short time. Murphy and Epps, though, are confident that they can pull it off, and Murphy orders the complaining to Santos to overhaul their starboard engine himself. He also stops Greer from calling it in, as he doesn't want to have to deal with any unannounced visitors. With that, they use to the crane to hoist the equipment they need up on to the Graza. They split up into pairs to make sure there's no more damage to the ship before they go through the trouble of repairing it. Santos, however, is still on the Graza, battling with the starboard engine, which squirts him in the face with oil. Back on the Graza, they manage to get the lights up again. While Murphy and Greer head down a flooded hallway, Epps makes her way to the room with the now empty swimming pool. Walking up to the edge and illuminating the walls with her flashlight, she sees what appear to be bullet-holes in them.
Munder and Dodge make their way down to the main engine room, as Murphy comes across the captain's cabin, which he refuses to let Greer enter, for some reason, forcing him to head off in another direction (even though he earlier told Greer not to go off by himself). Back at the pool, Epps climbs down into it to get a closer look at the holes and finds that they were made by bullets, as she finds shell casings on the bottom. She then tries to climb back up, only to be startled when she sees Katie standing up there and falls back down, knocking herself out. While Greer investigates a dark corridor by himself, Murphy heads into the captain's cabin and, looking around, finds a mildewed cap on the couch, as well as a straight razor with dried blood on its blade in a sink in the washroom. Greer finds an empty shaft that leads down to some mangled, sharp pieces of metal, while Dodge and Munder reach the engine room and find that it's flooded, meaning their going to need their scuba equipment to get to the tear. Dodge tries to contact Epps over the walkie-talkie, but gets nothing but static. Epps then comes to at the bottom of the pool, some blood from where she hit her head seeping down through a hole in the floor, and yells to see if the girl is still there. But, she sees nobody but Ferriman, who helps her get out of the pool. In the captain's cabin, Murphy finds a bottle of liquor and a glass nearly full of it on the table across from him. He picks the glass up and is about to take a sip, when he looks up at a mirror on the wall and sees the Graza captain's reflection mimicking his actions. Startled, he drops the glass on the floor, spilling the liquor, but another look shows him that there's nothing in the mirror but his own reflection. He heads out of the cabin, the captain's reflection reappearing in the mirror as he walks out. At the pool, as Epps shows Ferriman one of the bullet casings she found down there, blood starts oozing out of the holes, to the point where it runs across the floor. Neither of them seems to notice this, as Epps tells him that she saw the girl again and thinks she must be losing her mind. The two of them walk out of the room, while the pool becomes totally filled with blood, within which are the bodies of the passengers.
As he continues his exploration, Greer hears the sound of a woman's voice singing in Italian nearby. He's not the only one, as Dodge and Munder hear it over their walkie-talkie in the engine room. Greer tries to contact the others but hears nothing but the singing over his own walkie-talkie. While Dodge thinks what they're hearing is Epps playing a prank on them, Greer follows the sound to the ballroom, which appears to be empty. Elsewhere, Epps and Ferriman take a small flight of stairs down to the central laundry room, which is also flooded. Seeing a hatch up ahead that she feels is connected to the forward hold, she opens it up, only for a big rush of water to come at them and knock them off their feet. The water isn't the only thing they're hit with, as a spate of corpses come flooding in with it. As the door they came through closes and latches by itself, Epps and Ferriman panic at the sight of the corpses, Epps frantically trying to contact Murphy. She says that, after seeing this and deducing that the corpses have probably there for a month, that they're going to call the coast guard and let them deal with the Graza. They attempt to come back the way they came, only to be faced with the now closed and latched door, which she's unable to budge. A door down in the room where the bodies are floating slowly opens and, heading back down there, the two of them decide to try that way. Back in the ballroom, Greer fiddles around with the piano, when he spots a smoking cigarette in the ashtray. Picking it up, he notices that it has lipstick on the one end, which perplexes him, since Epps never wears lipstick. Looking around for Epps, he notices a billboard with Francesca's picture on it. He notes that she has nice tits, only to quickly backtrack and say that she can't hold a candle to his future wife. He then walks out of the room, not seeing the figure of Francesca watching him from nearby, while smoking another cigarette.
Epps and Ferriman make their way through the dark corridors beyond the open door they took, when Ferriman gets distracted when they pass by the cargo hold, which has two doors that both just opened by themselves. He walks into the hold, admiring the rusted, old 1958 Jaguar X150, saying that it was a car he dreamed about, but Epps is no mood for this, saying they have to get out. They're about to leave, when she spots something moving in the room beyond, which is full of large bags of various papers. Seeing something bumping a couple of bags from beneath, Epps and Ferriman smack them both off of the wooden chest they're sitting on and she flings the lid open. In doing so, she's faced with a big mass of rats, the sight of which makes her jump back and yell in horror and disgust. Ferriman, however, notices that there's something else in the chest besides the rats: a long row of bars of solid gold. Epps says they need to find Murphy and the two of them head back out, calling for him. They stop when they hear something coming over Epps' walkie-talkie and she tries to call back whoever it is. She hears some eerie voices calling her first name, Maureen, over the radio, followed by another voice saying, "It's cold." Epps moves on to the galley, which is up ahead, and when she and Ferriman both enter, they hear the voices again, repeating that it's cold and asking them for help. They approach the door to freezer, and Epps, ignoring a warning from Ferriman, swings it open. She walks in, finding it full of hanging, wrapped up slabs of meat, but when she passes by one, a head inside of it turns to look at her. Suddenly, one of the slabs of meat in front of her starts flailing around and screaming, sending her running back in a panic. This causes her to face another such figure and she runs straight out the door, with both of them chasing her. But, when she turns around and shines her flashlight on them, she finds that it's just Munder and Dodge pulling a prank. Epps is not amused by this, while they consider it to be them getting back at her for "fucking with them" earlier. She tells them about the bodies she and Ferriman found in the laundry room, as well as the gold in the cargo hold, pulling a bar out of her pocket and setting it down for emphasis.
Everyone, including Santos, gathers in the cargo hold, Ferriman unable to stop giggling as Murphy takes a crowbar to a locked chest. After ripping the lock off, he opens the lid to reveal more bars of gold. Everyone is absolutely ecstatic at the sight of this, with Murphy taking a bar and kissing it, while Dodge and Munder excitedly hug each other, and Dodge does the same to Ferriman. Once they've gotten all of the gold in the large room in the hold, Murphy figures they could be worth $200 or $300 million, possibly even more. He also believes it has something to do with why the ship disappeared to begin with, although Munder wonders about the corpses in the laundry room, who were obviously killed only recently. Greer, who figures that the gold was stolen, says that, in his opinion, "This ship is fucked up..." He tells them about hearing the woman's singing voice and how it was like she was coming on to him. However, everybody laughs that off, Dodge suggesting that it could mean Greer isn't quite ready to get married. Getting back to the gold, Murphy says that anything found in international waters belongs to whoever found it, meaning that the gold is legally theirs (that is not what the law is but, whatever). They take a vote about just taking it and leaving the Graza behind. Everyone votes in that direction and so, the decision is made.
That night, they prepare to load the gold onto the Warrior, as Santos, who's thrilled at the prospect of being mega-rich, finalizes the overhauling of the starboard engine. On the foredeck, Murphy radios Greer to get the engines running and Greer, in turn, relays this to Santos. Unbeknownst to Santos, the knob on a propane tank behind is slowly turning by itself, releasing the gas. He tells Greer to fire the engine up, while on the Graza, Epps is surprised to see Katie, who yells at her to stop, but before she can elaborate, she's grabbed by a figure. At that moment, Greer turns the ignition key, right as Santos smells the propane. He screams for Greer but, it's too late. Greer hits the button, the engines kick on, and the propane ignites. A massive fireball blasts through the center of the Warrior, blowing Santos back and nearly blowing Ferriman and Munder off their feet. Santos, his body engulfed in flames, staggers across the deck and tumbles over the side, into the water, before the boat's entire midsection explodes. Epps is blasted backwards on the Graza's deck, and when she quickly gets back on her feet and runs to the edge of the ship, shouting for her crewmen, she sees the Warrior's two halves sinking into the water, with the huge fireball in the center. She jumps down into the water and sees Ferriman grab onto Munder, before she does the same for Greer, who's floating on the water, unconscious. He comes to, and Epps yells for Santos, but it doesn't take long for them to realize that he's gone. Up on the Graza, Katie can do nothing but watch the tragic scene unfold. Later, inside the Graza, as they try to figure out what happened and while Epps treats a head wound Greer sustained, Dodge takes his anger and grief out on Ferriman. He gets so angry that he rushes at and grabs Ferriman's color, yelling that Santos is dead because of him, with Greer having to restrain him.
Later, Epps finds a very despondent Murphy on the foredeck and, while she tries to console him, he simply gets up and walks off by himself. She goes back to the others and tells them that their best course of action is to fix the Graza, get it past the islands, and wait to be rescued. Greer, however, suggests that they just build a raft, while Munder tells Epps that they were already stretching to get the job done before, when they had three days. However, she talks him into trying and they figure they'd best wait until daylight to try it. Greer, though, isn't onboard with the idea, going on a rant about how, if Murphy had let him call the ship in, they'd have already been picked up and on their way home with the gold. Munder sees this as him passing blame on everyone but himself, and gets punched in the face for it. Dodge has to drag Greer away, while Epps goes to see to Munder's injury. Later, Murphy, still ripped up about what's happened, makes his way back to the captain's cabin and decides to help himself to the liquor he found there earlier. Up on the bridge, Epps looks through the passenger list and finds the name "Katie Harwood" listed in a room on B-deck, while in the radio room, Ferriman listens in on Dodge and Munder in the galley, discussing about the possibility that the Graza's passengers for the gold. They then play rock-paper-scissors to see who has to taste the canned food to see if it's alright, a game which Munder loses. Down in the ballroom, Greer is drowning his sorrows with a bottle of champagne he found and lamenting that he didn't call the ship in. He looks at a picture of his fiance and promises to make it home to her, before looking at the poster of Francesca and grumbling, "What the hell are you looking at?" Back in the galley, Munder tries a can of beans and finds, to his surprise, that it's alright. Hearing this, Dodge joins him in stuffing himself with it. Elsewhere, Epps makes her way down to Katie's cabin, softly calling for her. Reaching the end of a corridor, she's startled when all of the open cabin doors behind her slam shut one after the other. She then hears the sound of Katie humming, as a door across from her slowly opens by itself. In the galley, Dodge and Munder continue digging into the food, only to get a revolting surprise when they discover that they've actually been eating maggots this whole time. They droop their spoons, let out disgusted yells, and Dodge runs out, while Munder vomits up the maggots still in his mouth.
Epps cautiously enters Katie's cabin and looks around, finding a plethora of toys, dolls, dresses, and other items that belonged to the girl, as well as crayon drawings on the wall. She smiles at these... but then, she opens up the sliding double-doors that they're taped on and is horrified to find a shriveled, child's corpse hanging from a rope on the other side. Down in the ballroom, Greer has finished the bottle of champagne and is on his way out, when a light suddenly comes on up above him. Various objects in the room start moving by themselves and, as Greer frantically scans the room, brandishing the bottle as a weapon, it becomes clear that the room is being restored to its former glory from forty years ago. Within seconds, he's standing in the middle of the room as it looked back in 1962, surrounded by many clapping passengers, and he turns around to see Francesca up on the stage with her band. In the captain's cabin, Murphy has passed out at the desk from the liquor, when he's startled awake by the bottle sliding across it by itself. The captain's ghost then appears, pours some liquor into the glass, and offers it to him. Back in the ballroom, the thoroughly disoriented Greer is approached by Francesca, who kisses him lightly on his right cheek and asks him to dance with her. Figuring that none of it is real, Greer decides to just go with it, rationalizing that he can't cheat with a dead woman, and kisses her on the lips. In Katie's cabin, Epps removes a heart-shaped locket from the hanging corpse and opens it to see two small, sepia-toned pictures of a middle-aged man and woman, whom she realizes were Katie's parents. Katie herself appears behind her and startles her, asking her not to close the locket, as it's been a long time since she's seen them. She tells Epps that she was on her way to New York to be with them and that the dress she's wearing is something her mother made for her, adding that Epps herself reminds her of her mother. Epps tries to give Katie the locket, only for it to pass through her hand. Seeing this, Epps, says, "Oh, God. You really are a fucking ghost." Meanwhile, Francesca entices Greer to follow her, as she walks out of the ballroom, unzipping the back of her dress as she goes.
In the captain's cabin, Murphy has finished his drink. The captain's ghost laments about Santos and Murphy responds, "Santos was my goddamn... responsibility." He's hand a small book and, opening it up, he finds an old photo of a half-sunken ship, which he identifies as the Lorelei. The captain explains that they found the ship adrift and they rescued it. He looks through more photos that show him that the Lorelei is where the gold came from, with one photo carrying the date of May 19th, 1962, two days before the Graza disappeared. He adds that there were no survivors on the Lorelei but the captain indicates with his finger that there was one and hands Murphy a photo of said survivor, the sight of which horrifies him. While the half-naked Francesca gets Greer to follow her into the bowels of the ship, Katie, in her cabin, tells Epps that she and all the other spirits on the Graza are trapped, even those who aren't "marked." Epps asks her what she means by "marked" and she, hesitantly, answers, "When the boat's full... when he has all the souls he needs... and has filled his quota... we'll all be ferried... to..." Before she can say any more, she sees fleshly, bloody tendrils spreading across the walls and ceiling and panics, saying "he" doesn't like that she's talking to Epps. She tells her that she needs to leave the ship while she can. Epps scans the room, not seeing what Katie is seeing, and when she looks back where she was sitting, she finds that Katie has vanished after letting out a frightened scream.
Murphy, searching for Epps, ends up in the room where the swimming pool is, where he comes face-to-face with Santos' burnt spirit. Murphy tries to back away, only for Santos to appear in the doorway he came through when he turns around. He tells Murphy, "You know, it's no fun lying a mile down, at the bottom of the ocean," walking towards him and causing to fall over a stack of wooden boards behind him. "No bright lights at the end of the tunnel. Not for me, Murph. No 10,000 virgins at the pearly gates. No." Murphy crawls backwards across the floor, trying to escape him, only to again turn around and be faced with him. "Because of the plan, I'm trapped on this dreamboat of yours. So, you know what? You're coming along for the ride." This sends Murphy running out of the room as fast as he can, Santos disappearing when he moves past him. Greer, meanwhile, is preparing to go ahead and cheat on his fiance with Francesca, who completely removes what's left of her dress. He starts to undress as well, removing his coat and unzipping his fly. But, when he tries to come at her, he falls right through her, down the very shaft he found when he was exploring the ship by himself earlier. Francesca watches him fall and land with a harsh thud, before saying good night to him and turning around, having now changed into a hideous, decaying ghoul. Elsewhere in the ship, Epps find Murphy, but when he turns around and looks at her, he instead sees the vengeful Santos, holding a knife rather than the flashlight she's holding. Frightened, Murphy charges at Epps and pins her against the wall. The confused Epps manages to swing him around, trying to tell him that it's her, but she gets flung into a lounge area. Muphy jumps on her and pins her to the floor, seeing Santos taunting him, saying, "Do it. Come on, it'll make you feel good." Epps grabs a candelabra from a nearby table and hits Murphy in the head with it, knocking him off of her, but he grabs a nearby harpoon gun and tries to hit it with the butt of it before lunging at her with the loaded spear. Grabbing a small knife, Epps stabs him in the foot but he manages to fling her against the wall. He's just about to come down on her with the harpoon, when Ferriman comes in and whacks him in the head with a large canister, knocking him unconscious.
After they've found Dodge and Munder, they drop Murphy down into the large, empty fish tank and close the hatch, despite Epps saying that Murphy was drunk and confused. They go to look for Greer, while outside, the sun is rising and the islands that threaten to sink the Graza are now in sight. Some time later, the men return to tell Epps that they couldn't find Greer anywhere and they figure that his bad temper earlier had something to do with the ship. Dodge thinks that soon, they'll all probably be at each other's throats. Regardless, he feels that the best thing to do is to try to fix the ship, which they need to get on now. First, they dive into the flooded engine room, use some C4 to blow open a jammed bulkhead hatch, and Munder seals up the large tear in the hull. Second, they set up a couple of pumps to get rid of the water, with Epps smashing a window up in the ship and stretching the hose out of it. They activate the pumps, at full power, and figure that it will take twelve hours to get rid of all the water; regardless, the water starts streaming out smoothly. Third, with the rudder fixed, Epps goes to the bridge and tries to use the helm and compass to orient the ship into a direction that will take them past the islands. She then goes down and tells Dodge and Munder the situation, giving them hope that they might make it. She tells Dodge to check on the bridge when he has a chance, as she's going to search for Greer down below.
Down in the depths of the ship, Epps sees Katie again, standing at the end of a hallway, and when she looks through a doorway on the wall to her right, she sees Greer's body, impaled on the mangled metal at the bottom of the shaft. In the engine room, one of the pumps gets clogged up and Munder and Dodge decide with rock-paper-scissors who gets to dive down and unclog it. Like before, Munder loses. Back with Epps, she barely has time to process Greer's death before Katie tells her to come with her, as she wants to show her something. She Epps and, within an instant, they're both transported back to the night in 1962 when the Graza disappeared. Epps is shown that, while Francesca was singing in the ballroom, some of the crew turned on each other for the gold. They killed the cooks in the kitchen and, just as Dodge theorized, put poison in the food they served to the passengers. Those who didn't die from that were either killed by the sharp wire that whipped through the exterior dance floor or massacred by the revolting crewmen. Katie also shows Epps that, after the captain was sliced up in front of her, she tried to run down to her cabin, only to spot a crewman who'd been friendly to her earlier getting his throat sliced open with a razor blade. The killers chased after her, while up in the galley, the crew poured out guns that they'd been hiding in the pots and pans and proceeded to execute a number of passengers down by the swimming pool, causing the water to turn red with their blood. However, one of the crewmen got a knife in his back by another one who turned on him. Katie was dragged to her cabin, screaming, as one of her abductors used his razor to slice open someone trying to escape, before they took her in the cabin and hung her. Then, the crew blew open the door to the room in the cargo hold containing the crates of gold, yelling crazily about their conquest. Unbeknownst to all but one of them, Francesca walked into the hold and, after she and the crewman who stopped his comrade exchanged glances, he turned a machine gun on those who were clamoring for the gold, killing them all. But, when he turned back around, Francesca pulled a pistol and shot him square in the head, putting a big hole through the center of it. Francesca then turned around and saw a shadowy figure standing in the doorway to the hold. She tossed her pistol away as he approached her and kissed her on the lips. But, he suddenly pulled away and a hook up near the ceiling came loose and swung right at Francesca, stabbing her through her head. She swayed back and forth before finally stopping and hanging like a piece of meat, as the stranger ripped one of her gloves off and burned the symbol of a hook into the palm of her hand. With that, Epps sees the stranger's face: Ferriman. It hits her all at once that he's behind it all, as well as that Murphy is in danger in the fish tank.
She rushes there as fast as she can but, it's already too late: the tank is full of water and Murphy has drowned. To compound it all, the photo that the captain gave him floats out of his hand, revealing Ferriman as the Lorelei's survivor and showing that Murphy had learned of his true nature. Futilely, Epps tries to smash through the fish tank with a hammer, screaming that he can't die on her, even though Murphy is clearly already dead. The realization quickly hits her and she slumps down next to the tank and cries hysterically, as Katie watches helplessly from nearby. She and Epps exchange looks and Epps quickly composes herself. In the engine room, Munder dives down into the water and heads towards the clogged pump, while Epps arrives on the bridge and tells Dodge about Murphy. She then tries to tell him about Ferriman but stops when he shows up on, saying that he's seen what's happened to Murphy. Epps changes her tune, telling him and Dodge to wait while he goes to check on Munder. She tells Dodge that she doesn't want them out of each other's sight and gives Dodge a rifle, having to insist that he take it. She then rushes to the engine room, but at that moment, Munder's leg gets snagged in one of the ship's gear and, despite his attempt to swim away, he gets pulled in and crushed to death. When Epps reaches the engine room, she yells for Munder, only to then learn of his fate when blood rushes through the one functioning hose. She looks down in the water and sees his severed body parts lying in a heap down on the floor. The Graza then clears the islands and Ferriman, seeing this, says he's going to go check on Epps. Dodge, however, keeps him on the bridge, telling him to wait like she said. That's when Ferriman decides to drop all pretenses. He sets down his flashlight, removes his coat, and tells Dodge that he's a pathetic excuse for a man, accusing him of doing everything that Epps tells him to like a loyal pet. He tries to leave the bridge but Dodge stands between him and the doorway, pointing the rifle at him. He asks Ferriman who he is but Ferriman, instead, mocks him for not having the guts to tell Epps how he feels her. Ferriman offers to make his dreams come true if he gets out of his way, but Dodge stands firm, cocking the gun for emphasis. Ferriman lunges at him and Dodge fires, blasting him backwards and leaving a huge, gaping hole in his torso. Thinking he's killed Ferriman, Dodge leaves the room, not seeing Ferriman's eyes move to watch him.
In the engine room, Epps finishes planting plastic explosives on the wall across from the walkway and heads back over to arm them, when Dodge arrives. He tells her that he killed Ferriman but Epps tells him not to be so sure. She also tells him that she's going to sink the boat and that they'll just have to take their chances. He tries to talk her down, telling her that the gold can allow them to have their own boat and a life together, but Epps isn't having it. He lunges at her, going for the detonator, but Epps arms it and threatens to hit the button. This sends Dodge into a rage and he throws tools and other objects across the room, yelling at her and daring her to do it. He turns his back to her and Epps then asks, "Why haven't you asked me where Munder is?" He starts laughing and morphs into Ferriman, admitting he didn't ask because he already knew that Munder is dead. Adding that he's killed Dodge, he tells her that, like her, he's a salvager... of souls. Explaining that he's going to send a boatload of souls to hell when he meets his quota, which will make "management" happy, he tells her, "You see, it's a job. Given to me after a lifetime of sin. So, if I lose this ship, management won't be happy, which is not a good thing." He offers to let her live if she allows him to finish his job, but tells her that he can't give her crew back, as she asks. She prepares to pull the trigger on the detonator, but Ferriman manipulates a steel beam into hitting her in the side of her head, sending her into the water. Ferriman jumps in after her, grabs her, and throws her against the wall, yelling, "All you had to do was fix the ship!" Putting his foot on her neck as she lies on the flooded floor, he snarls, "I gave you a great opportunity! All you had to do was take it!" Epps grabs a harpoon gun lying on the floor and stabs him through the leg with it, causing him to jump back in pain and remove his foot from her neck. She points the gun at him but, instead of shooting him, she points and shoots at the detonator's trigger. She dives under the water as the explosives are activated, blowing a hole in the ship's hull and sending a huge explosion up through the top of it and out its side. Ferriman's body is blown apart as the fireball rips completely through the ship and engulfs the engine room, with water rushing in from the massive hole the blast created.
As the now freed souls make their way to the surface, Epps struggles to escape the sinking ship, when she sees Katie silently beckoning to her. She guides Epps to a hatch that she's able to open with some effort and it leads her out of the ship. She swims with the souls to the surface, with Katie saying a silent goodbye to her, as she and the others begin to change into light. Epps hits the surface and, grabbing onto a floating crate, watches the Graza sinking beneath the waves, as all of the souls spiral around it, heading up into the sky and becoming one with the Northern Lights. The next day, after having been floating out in the ocean all night long, Epps is awakened by the sound of a cruiser ship's horn blasting. She's picked up and taken to shore, where she's carried off the ship on a stretcher and placed into the back of an ambulance. But, right before the doors are closed, Epps sees the ship's crew carrying a number of wooden crates up the gangplank, with Ferriman walking behind them. He glares at her but goes about his business, as she tries to warn the others, only for the doors to close on her, which is where the movie ends. I don't know if they were trying to put in a hook for a sequel or what, but it feels that way, and it's so predictable and cliched that you can't help but think, "Really? You had to go there?" I think it would have been so much more affecting if they'd simply ended with Epps being rescued and taken to the hospital, while maybe looking at Katie's necklace as a memory of what's been through. Schmaltzy, yes, but I feel that the way they did end it hurts the impact of the lovely, almost poetic visuals of the souls being freed and the idea of the death-ship finally being destroyed after forty years of lurking out in the ocean. Maybe if they'd been more subtle about the prospect of Ferriman possibly not being dead, it would have worked better. Regardless, I'm just glad it didn't lead to a bunch of unnecessary sequels, which would have likely been straight to video, as I can only imagine how they would have ended up.
The music, courtesy of John Frizzell, is one aspect of Ghost Ship that I have no problems with whatsoever. I really enjoy this score, as it makes you feel both the tragic and lovely aspects of the story much more than the movie itself manages to. Whenever something happens that devastates the crew, such as when the Arctic Warrior is destroyed or when Epps finds that Murphy is dead, you hear this distant, forlorn piece of music that's accompanied by a woman solemnly vocalizing and it's very effective. It works really well when you see Murphy in the captain's cabin, absolutely broken and distraught over Santos' death. In addition, there's a string piece that you hear a few times, including at the very beginning, that gives off a strong sense of elegance and class, congruous with the setting of a luxury cruise liner. And then, there's a downright beautiful piece of music that you first hear subtly when Epps goes into Katie's cabin and it comes to total fruition at the end of the movie, when the Graza is sinking and the souls are freed. It's such a lovely piece that, when combined with the visuals of the souls ascending to become one with the Northern Lights, it gets across that they're free after decades of being held prisoner on the ship much more than the story and actors ever did. The rest of the music isn't quite as memorable, mainly just being adequate for the scenes they accompany, but these parts of the score are so well done that I can easily overlook any of its shortcomings.
The movie also has a pretty good soundtrack. The song, Senza Fine, which you hear during the opening when it's sung by Francesca (in actuality, the singer is Monica Mancini), nothing less than a calm, slow, smooth, and elegant song that's very pleasing to the ear and is something I could see myself relaxing to in the future. A song called My Little Box, by Gabriel Mann, plays during the flashback to the mutiny and, while I'm not crazy about it, the way it's a rather soft, subtle, techno-style song, with lyrics that you can just barely make out, help to give that sequence an appropriate, otherworldly vibe. And finally, there's the metal song, Not Falling, performed by Mudvayne, which Santos is listening to while piloting the boat and which plays over the ending credits. Normally, I hate this kind of music, but I found myself liking this song, thinking it had a really nice beat and sound to it. It'd definitely be a good song to work out to.
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