The Japanese entry in the series and yes it's all about vengeful ghosts and yes we do see, sigh, a lot of hair attacking and yes we do have a creepy ghost but no this isn't good.First of all it's a slow builder and secondly the story doesn't grow or stick together. It all starts when Jack, in his teens see his brother drowning before his eyes and there's nothing he can do. We see Jack having nightmares about that fact but it's so stupid like the cap in the sink, that was just awful. Then we move further to the fact that the grown up Jack works in Japan and is having an affair with a client's wife. When the husband needs Jack to solve a problem he asks his wife Yuri together with Jack on board of his yacht to solve the problem, but of course he intend to kill them both because he's aware of the affair. The fact that Jack's brother is being killed by water makes him afraid of going on sea, but he does, once on the yacht he's the big hero, no problems of any kind. Still it's a lot of blah blah before things go wrong but when it does it's all off-camera. Then of course the yacht breaks down and in comes the hair. Guess who, Naomi, Eiji's earlier wife. The only thing that looked creepy was her ghost. But by then it was all too late. This was for me the worst entry in season 2 and this was also the final entry. I thought a lot of Dead Calm (1989) but with a twist of a ghost. Even the ending with Jack's brother returning in the water looked stupid. No, I wont board in again to this cruise.Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

I was surprised when I watched this episode (on DVD), that it's running time, almost hit the 90 minute mark. Generally the episodes don't even hit the hour mark, so for an episode to be that long, it was unusual to say the least! But longer=better does not really apply to that episode. Quite a few will say the exact opposite. And while there has been quite a few J-Horror movies around to satisfy most people, many have already started to get annoyed by them. The actors in this are not exactly helping. Though the Japanese lead man, is very well known (I have seen him in a couple of movies), he can't help this episode rise and be great.Still, there is something to the story, that I really liked. And despite it's many flaws (many mentioned above, from acting, to length, to also predictability), it has something unique. While it can't shake it's (TV)roots off, this still might be something for you, if you can accept the slow build-up.

As a "Masters of Horror" episode, "Dream Cruise" has one distinct advantage over all the others; It's longer, clocking in at about 83 minutes instead of the hour long format we're used from other eps. This is used to good advantage as the film gradually builds up to a rather suspenseful finale.Now I'm no expert in Japanese horror but the ones I've seen are somewhat similar. I'll give them one thing; They're sure good at creating creepy ghosts. One scene here made me spill my beverage all over myself (maybe I should have seen it coming but I didn't). The same thing happened with "Ringu", it's damn creepy. Not horrifying but immensely creepy. "Dream Cruise" is pretty creepy as well once it gets going.Now, the feature length aspect really helps the film. Some of the best "Masters of Horror" episodes really cry out for feature length treatment, "Cigarette Burns" and "Deer Woman" could easily have been stretched out with good results. "Dream Cruise" doesn't really kick into high gear until 50 minutes in but a fair amount of mood and atmosphere has been established up to that point.Finally I must compliment the makers here for that insanely creepy ghost. Towards the end I was feeling rather uncomfortable and all in all I was quite pleased with "Dream Cruise". Not the top of the cream in "Masters of Horror" but a solid entry.

Although I did enjoy the movie, it was nothing new. A woman with long hair is done wrong and now reeks pain and suffering on anyone who enters her house, oops, I mean space of water. Long hair getting into everything, possessions, did it or didn't it happen situations etcetera, etc. I did enjoy the movie like I said earlier, but I think it is time for J Horror to come up with something new. Expand the genre. Didn't care much for the the DVD extras either by the way. By the standards out today, there is not an excuse to not have deleted scenes or bloopers or separate actor and director commentaries. What the original writer thought would have been nice. Use a camcorder if your worried about extra cost. If Brain Damaged movies can do it, they can too.