To me, this episode was pretty freaky, but I think it's more to my fear of an open sea than to the quality of the film itself. The story isn't bad, but it doesn't bring anything new. Not only is the ghost practically copied from "The Ring", but the a complete plot is already seen more than once. However, the realization and acting are at a decent level, the film is tense and holds attention, and there are also a few quite interesting and terrifying scenes.6/10

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

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.

I was pretty disappointed in the adaptation which is wholly unlike the story that is in the Dark Water collection. I wasn't asking for a faithful adaptation, it just was not what I was expecting. Also, I wasn't too terribly fond of Daniel Gillies' performance, but the Japanese cast were very good (yay for Ishibashi Ryo!) I give the film an eight simply because Tsuruta-san knows how to work the ghost angle and the Naomi stuff is really good. She's just enough of Yamamura Sadako to bring a smile to a knowing fan's face and is chilling enough to leave an impression on a casual viewer. The CGI enhancements were subtle and effective...the first time I think I've ever been able to say that about supplemental digital effects...and the practical make-up was well-done.Not a bad entry in the series, but I think it should have aired earlier in the run.