Action, adventure, suspense, good music, some incredible visuals, good acting and nice twists...an instant classic! Gabriel Byrne is excellent as usual.

Long on visual effects and style, short on plot and characters, this big budget horror film doesn't offer much outside of solid cast and some cleverly gory moments. I loved the 1950s style opening sequence to the film, with Julianna Margulies torch singing on an elegant passenger ship at sea. This scene climaxes with the film's most outrageous and memorable death scene, where an entire dance floor is cut in half when a steel cable snaps loose. If the film had maintained that level of over-the-top shock value, this film might have been better. Instead, like the the first "Blade" film with it's amazing bloodbath opening sequence, the rest of the film is a major letdown. "Ghost Ship" was directed by Steve Beck, who's only other directing credit is "13 Ghosts," which was similarly short of plot, but strong on visual effect and style, although this film's writer is John Pogue, who wrote the underrated "U.S. Marshals" and the also underrated "Quarantine 2: Terminal," but this script about a salvage crew (Gabriel Byrne, Ron Eldard, Isaiah Washington, Karl Urban, and Emily Browning) finding and setting out to loot the titular ghost ship killed off one-by-one in rather unmemorable fashions and amongst a lots of cheap jump-scares. It's kind of fun seeing Julianna Margulies pre-The Good Wife in such a disreputable of genre film, but that's not enough to save this dull horror flick. Horror fans should watch the first 10 minutes of this film, but then turn it off.

I was extremely surprised by this movie, mostly because of the flashback sequence, the music, and especially the massacre scene. I admit I don't have any idea how that could happen because I know nothing about ships, but that probably helped keep it unexpected for me. The victims' reactions were an eye opener, and leaving Emily Browning in the middle... Creepy. Her life end story line was interesting to me as well because it's not often you see that happen to a young girl, even in horror films. It adds a sense of how traumatizing the experience must have been. Back to the music, it's fairly popular for horror films to use a calming song during the scary scenes, but Ghost Ship gave it some additional flair, in my opinion. Also, My Little Box by John Frizzle was very well chosen. I haven't heard his name tied to anything else, so I'll consider his song in Ghost Ship to be a personal one hit wonder. The scene it was used in didn't hurt it either!

I'm not fan of ghost stories, but what sounds more mysterious and pulsating than empty cruise ship floating around the sea?! But first impression actually deceives. It's a shame.I really like mysterious and scifi things. This has very attractive plot, but ghosts... Nah. Yes, I actually didn't even expected much, since this IS ghost movie. It's said on title.I have actually watched very similar movie, where some crew also founds empty cruising ship and start exploring it. I don't remember that movie's name. And I don't spoil that other movie too much, but I say that it's not a ghost movie. It has it's own things. It's way much better that way. This wasn't that good.