Ghost Ship
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: October 25, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
28
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
0
Mixed:
8
Negative:
17
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Washington PostRichard Harrington
The plot doesn't always make sense, despite a thunderous explicatory montage halfway through, but as a fresh setting for terror shenanigans. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Beck wants to dazzle the audience. I'd settle for a story. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyStaff (Not credited)
That creaking noise you hear in Ghost Ship is the rattling of countless plot skeletons that have sunk before. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
About as frightening as Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
Not scary enough for its own good, Beck's Ghost Ship ends up stuck, enjoyably enough, between the Scylla of schlock and the Charybdis of camp. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
If you take your ghost stories garnished with a dressing of sadism, sanctimony and silliness, go ahead and squander the nine bucks. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Is the film worth seeing? Depends. It breaks no new ground as horror movies go, but it does introduce an intriguing location, and it's well made technically. It's better than you expect but not as good as you hope. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneLoren King
An adequate horror movie for the Halloween season, but it too easily sinks into haunted-house-film conventions, even if the haunted house is decked out as an Italian luxury liner. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Pureed, predictable conflation of ''Alien'' and ''Titanic'' and ''The Shining.'' Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Ghost Ship, which can best be described by altering one consonant in the second word, sustains the stylishness of its opening for exactly three minutes. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Pretty much what you'd expect -- just another haunted house that happens to float. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Although there are several truly jolting scares, there's also an abundance of hackneyed dialogue and more silly satanic business than you can shake a severed limb at. Read full review
30
The New York TimesStephen Holden
So preoccupied with delivering its effects that it doesn't bother to make sense of its story. Read full review
30
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Doesn't orchestrate the scares with much finesse. Read full review
30
VarietyRobert Koehler
Launched with a few surprising touches and a disturbingly bloody prelude, horror pic collapses under the weight of its own dull conception and weak direction, dialogue and character portraits. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The movie is simultaneously soft and icky; the gross-out effects are grafted onto a sub-"Tales from the Crypt" ghost story that never scares up any serious chills. Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Likely to appeal only to undiscriminating nudity-- and gore -- starved adolescents. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldChris Hewitt
Coincidentally, this is the second movie in two weeks about a haunted seafaring vessel ("Below" is the other), and if you see just one, this shouldn't be it. Read full review
25
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Ghost Ship would have been so much better if they'd just let the ship do more of the acting.
25
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
Stupid, derivative horror film that substitutes extreme gore for suspense. Read full review
25
New York PostJonathan Foreman
A big, incoherent bore, interesting only as an example of assembly-line movie-making gone awry. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Meandering, sub-aquatic mess: It's so bad it's good, but only if you slide in on a freebie. Read full review
20
Village VoiceMark Holcomb
Despite a couple of inventive CGI effects (one involving mass evisceration), the results are more predictable and less frightening than a Con Ed bill in mid August. Read full review
20
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
A better name for it would have been the Herschell Gordon Lewis: the godfather of gore himself couldn't have topped this succession of grisly deaths. Read full review
10
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
See evil. See evil run. Run, evil, run all the way to cable television purgatory. Read full review
More From This Movie

28 Critic Reviews

7.8 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL