Editorials
‘The Shining’ at Sea: The Version of ‘Ghost Ship’ We Almost Got
Save for a fantastic cold open that sees dozens of wealthy passengers dancing on the top deck of an ocean liner, only to have their lovely evening under the stars ruined with a brutal bisection via wire moments later, Ghost Ship wasn’t much of a cruise worth taking. Flash forward four decades, and the main plot has a salvage crew discovering that same ocean liner, hoping to claim it for riches. Naturally, its long-dead passengers may have objections. It was heavy on special effects and cool set designs, but the dialogue and character work were pretty abysmal. Throw in predictable clichés and tropes, and well, Ghost Ship wasn’t as exciting as it promised. But then, the theatrical release we got was far removed from the original screenplay. A gory special effect driven ghost party set at sea was originally a much quieter psychological haunter in the vein of The Shining.
After profitable remakes House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts, Dark Castle Entertainment decided to venture away from William Castle territory into original story terrain. They went with Mike Hanlon’s spec script Chimera, a small haunted house type story set on a boat. But it didn’t have that showy style or brisk pace of the previous two films, and so John Pogue (The Quiet Ones, Quarantine 2: Terminal) was tasked with a re-write.
In Chimera, there are only four main characters; Epps, Murphy, Dodge, and Greer, played by Julianna Margulies, Gabriel Byrne, Ron Eldard, and Isaiah Washington in the film. Ghost Ship adds two additional Arctic Warrior crew members in Santos (Alex Dimitriades) and Munder (Karl Urban), plus a tagalong in Ferriman (Desmond Harrington) who puts the ocean liner on their radar in the first place. Instead of the 1962 Italian ocean liner SS Antonia Graza, the Arctic Warrior crew instead finds the 1953 passenger liner Chimera. Hanlon’s script paints a more atmospheric setting and its haunting on a much smaller scale, first with strange sounds and then with shadows. It becomes clear soon enough just how much Hanlon drew influence from The Shining once Epps discovers the hidden stash of gold ingots.
Like The Shining, the haunted setting is much more subdued and factors heavily into the psychological breakdown of the crew the longer they stay on board. Room 400 on the Chimera acts as the oceanic version of Room 237. Most of the paranormal activity takes place in this room, and it’s usually centered around Epps, the only one of the crew members who sees anything remotely spectral. Late in the script (it takes a good half way through before things slowly start to pick up speed), Greer is found in a seizure-like state in Room 400. Once he snaps to, the story follows a similar path as Jack Torrance’s psychotic breakdown in the Overlook Hotel. In the film, much of Greer’s storyline is given to Murphy.
Stanley Kubrick had famously stated that there’s an evil side to the human personality, something inherently wrong, and that’s what he was exploring with Stephen King’s story. Hanlon went a little more specific; greed was the catalyst for Dodge, Greer, and Murphy going mad to varying degrees. Like the Overlook Hotel, the Chimera itself is evil and uses the corruptive nature of the gold to bring out the worst in whoever steps foot on board. When they fall under the ship’s sway, they kill each other.
Pogue’s script took the barebones of this concept and added Ferriman, a demon who gets his victims to sin first so he can collect their souls to later be ferried to hell. Pogue also added two additional crew members and an ocean liner full of ghosts, so there’d be a higher body count and more ghost sequences. Essentially, his version went with the “more is more” philosophy.
The one thing that Pogue surprisingly toned down from Hanlon’s mostly gore less script was teen ghost Katie Harwood (played by Emily Browning in the film), the only fully fleshed out ghost in the initial script. In both, she warns Epps away from danger, and gives her brief flashbacks that fill in the blanks of that critical date the Chimera descended into tragedy. But Katie’s fate is much grimmer and graphic in Hanlon’s script- the 16-year-old is sexually assaulted by mutineers next to the dead bodies of her mother and younger sister while other mutineers hold her father down and force him to watch. They then axe her to death. Pogue’s version leaves the assault implied, and hung after.
Hanlon’s script suffers pacing issues, very little characterization, and plot holes without resolution, namely why Epps can see Katie. Going by The Shining blueprint, we can assume she has something akin to the shining, but it’s never explicitly explained. So, it’s easy to see why another pass was taken at the script- it was needed.
When watching Ghost Ship, you can see a lot of Hanlon’s core motifs and concepts at play, even some of the nods to The Shining, but a lot of what worked about it was made worse by Pogue’s take. The Ferriman demon concept, the removal of the mystery element, the ghostly encounters dialed up to eleven, and an eye-rolling tacked on ending that has Ferriman starting anew all brought down a promising concept. The Shining with a little bit of Session 9, but set at sea sounds like a fantastic horror movie that they should have made.
Found footage movies rely on immersion and a particular kind of suspension of disbelief in order to scare viewers, so it stands to reason that playing along with the “kayfabe” of it all is necessary for these movies to be effective. However, despite being something of a purist when it comes to in-universe recordings, I’ve come to accept that traditional productions can benefit from the occasional injection of found footage thrills.
For instance, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation makes genius use of the analog gimmick in order to trap us in the titular rooms alongside our main characters before effortlessly switching back to a more cinematic language. In honor of these dynamic films that manage to combine the best of both worlds, today I’d like to share six other hybrid horror movies that successfully incorporate found footage into their scares!
For the purposes of this list, “hybrid” horror movies are defined as any flick that shifts between diegetic recordings and traditional filming techniques for a significant amount of time (or at least for pivotal scenes).
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own hybrid favorites if you think a particularly freaky one was missed.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. The Last Broadcast (1998)
Internet critics may have overstated the influence that Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler’s The Last Broadcast had on The Blair Witch Project, but the found footage subgenre still owes a huge debt to this underrated piece of avant-garde filmmaking. However, while the movie sets itself up as a documentary about the disappearance of a group of cryptid-hunters attempting to track down the Jersey Devil, things take a darker and much more grounded turn towards the final act.
I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that the jarring shift in perspective actually helps to sell the idea that everything we’ve seen before the finale was an attempt at using filmmaking to manipulate the public perception of a “real” incident.
Not bad for a movie with a $900 budget!
4. Cam (2018)
When you consider just how much the internet affects our daily lives, it’s strange that we don’t see Screenlife elements pop up in more movies these days. For instance, Isa Mazzei & Daniel Goldhaber’s highly underrated Cam only works as a freaky parable about online sex-work because it masterfully balances Madeline Brewer’s intimate moments with highly immersive segments within cyberspace.
While one might argue that the entire film could have been produced as a Screenlife experience, the hybrid approach allows the filmmakers to explore our main character’s life beyond the screens – with the duality of modern human existence actually becoming a recurring theme in the story.
3. Banshee Chapter (2013)
Most of H.P. Lovecraft’s popular stories were told in the epistolary format (where the text is presented as an in-universe compilation of letters or personal notes), so it makes sense that a spiritually faithful adaptation of his work would incorporate elements from the modern-day equivalent to epistolary fiction – found footage!
That’s why Blair Erickson’s Banshee Chapter is such an effective scare-fest, as this hybrid adaptation of From Beyond -retold through a conspiratorial lens as it references MK-Ultra and even secretive numbers stations- immerses viewers in a mind-bending tapestry of Cosmic Horror that blurs the line between fiction and reality.
2. The Deep House (2019)
The underwater setting does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Deep House, with the film being especially uncomfortable if you’re already scared of tight spaces and being deprived of oxygen. However, even the universally unsettling elements of the flick only work because the POV often shifts into claustrophobic footage courtesy of our main characters’ GoPro cameras.
Telling the story of a couple of YouTubers who encounter a haunted house at the bottom of an artificial lake while vacationing in France, The Deep House’s first-person exploration sequences contain some of the film’s scariest moments. In fact, I’d argue that the movie didn’t even need ghosts, as becoming trapped in the titular House already sounds like a fate worse than death.
1. Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
My personal favorite instance of filmmakers successfully managing to combine traditional cinematography with POV filmmaking, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, is proof that the two formats can co-exist if the right story comes along.
After all, what better way to conclude a mockumentary all about reality getting increasingly more cinematic than by ditching the found footage gimmick altogether during the finale? Not only does this shift in presentation work on a conceptual level, but it also elevates Behind The Mask into a proper Slasher, which is probably why we’re so excited for that long-overdue sequel!
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