One of the most divisive cult horror movies, with one of the best opening scenes in horror history, is making a bloody comeback on streaming. The opening scene is arguably the most important part of a movie, as it hooks the audience and lures them into the remaining 120 (or so) minutes of the movie. But, sometimes an opening scene can become so iconic that it overshadows the entire movie — see Saving Private Ryan for a great example. Horror movies almost always start with a brutal opening scene, filled with kills, body horror, and blood, to establish the tone of the film. But, in 2002, one horror film made its opening scene so spectacularly bloody, it became a piece of cinema legend, to the point where most people forgot what film it came from. 23 years after it was first released and flopped with critics, Ghost Ship is making a comeback on its new streaming home.
Ghost Ship was recently added to MGM+, just in time for the spooky season, and users cannot get enough of the movie. Ghost Ship is currently the seventh most popular movie on AMC+ (from Amazon channels). Released in 2002, Ghost Ship could so easily have been another forgettable horror movie. The film featured a decent cast that included a young Karl Urban, Julianna Margulies, Desmond Harrington, Emily Browning, and Francesca Rettondini. Both audiences and critics slated the movie when it was released. Ghost Ship holds an abysmal 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences were only slightly kinder to the movie, giving it a 38% rating.
So what is Ghost Ship actually about? Not that anyone really remembers the plot, but Ghost Ship follows a salvage crew discovering a 40-year-old abandoned ship in the middle of the Bering Sea. But once they board the ship, it’s not as abandoned as it seems. The official synopsis reads:
“In a remote region of the Bering Sea, a boat salvage crew discovers the eerie remains of a grand passenger liner thought lost for more than 40 years. But once onboard the eerie, cavernous ship, the crew of the Arctic Warrior discovers that the decaying vessel is anything but deserted. It’s home to something more deadly and horrific than anything they’ve encountered in all their years at sea.”
What Makes ‘Ghost Ship’ So Iconic?
Horror fans remember Ghost Ship for the same reason the latter entries in the Saw franchise are remembered. They might be bad movies, but they included some unforgettably brutal kills. The opening scene of Ghost Ship earned its place in cinema history for the same reason. Even the Rotten Tomatoes user reviews say so, as one viewer wrote, “The film isn’t great, but it has the best opening scene ever!”
The opening scene is set on the original ship on the night it went missing. As the passengers and crew take part in a final night dance, a mysterious wire can be seen sitting at wait height along one side of the ship. When the music reaches its crescendo, the wire whips like lightning across the ship. The dancing stops, and pools of blood begin to form around people’s waists, as they’ve all been simultaneously cut in half. Any kind of description really doesn’t do the scene justice.
- Release Date
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October 25, 2002
- Runtime
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91 minutes
- Director
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Steve Beck
- Writers
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John Pogue, Mark Hanlon
- Producers
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Gilbert Adler, Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis