Ghost Ship 2002 Soundtrack
Jeanett Fite
Ghost Ship is a 2002 American supernatural horror film directed by Steve Beck, and starring an ensemble cast featuring Gabriel Byrne, Julianna Margulies, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington, Isaiah Washington and Karl Urban. The film follows a marine salvage crew in the Bering Sea who discover a mysterious ocean liner that disappeared in 1962. Despite its title, the film is unrelated to the 1952 film of the same name.
In 1962, aboard the Italian ocean liner MS Antonia Graza, passengers dance to the song "Senza Fine" sung by Francesca. A young girl, Katie, sits alone until the ship's captain offers to dance with her. An unidentified person lifts a lever that tightens a metal cable. The cable snaps and whips across the dance floor, bisecting the passengers and crew. Katie is spared as the wire rips above her head through the captain, who is killed.
With no other option, the group must repair the Graza to make it back to port. Greer encounters the apparition of Francesca, who seduces him into cheating on his fiance, then leads him to fall down an elevator shaft killing him. Murphy enters the captain's cabin and encounters the ghost of the captain, who explains that they recovered the gold from a sinking cruise ship, the Lorelei, along with a sole survivor. Murphy is shown a picture of the survivor, whom he recognizes. He rushes to tell the others but hallucinates and sees Epps as the ghost of the burned Santos, who provokes him into a rage. The others think Murphy has gone mad and lock him in the drained fish tank, where Epps later finds him drowned. An invisible force has opened a valve filling the tank with water.
Epps meets Katie's ghost, who reveals what happened on the Graza. The sole survivor of the Lorelei convinced many of the Graza's crew to murder their passengers, as well as the captain and officers, for the gold. After murdering the passengers, the crew turned on each other. Francesca killed the officer who survived. The mastermind behind the massacre killed Francesca by releasing a hook that slashed her neck, then branded her palm with a hook-shaped symbol using only his hands. The man is Jack Ferriman, the demonic spirit of a deceased sinner tasked with provoking people to sin, then killing them and bringing their souls to Hell. Epps deduces that Ferriman lured the salvage team to the Graza to repair it and decides to sink it to thwart his plan. Munder is crushed to death under the ship's gears while scuba diving in the flooded engine room. Epps tells Dodge to keep Jack on the ship's bridge while she sets explosives. Ferriman taunts Dodge, mocking him as a coward for never acting on his feelings for Epps, then charges him. Dodge shoots Ferriman with a shotgun and believes Ferriman to be dead.
Epps is setting explosives when she is confronted by Dodge. He claims that he killed Ferriman and they can salvage the gold to start a life together, but Epps asks why Dodge has not asked where Munder is. Dodge morphs into Ferriman, who killed Dodge. Ferriman plans to use the Graza as a trap to continue collecting souls. As long as the Graza is kept afloat, the souls of everyone who died aboard the ship will be dragged down when Ferriman returns to Hell. Epps detonates the explosives. Ferriman is blown to pieces in the explosion, while Katie helps Epps escape the sinking ship. Katie and the other trapped souls ascend to Heaven.
Epps is found by a cruise ship and returned to land. As she is loaded into an ambulance, she sees the gold being loaded onto the cruise ship by unknown crew members overseen by a resurrected Ferriman, who glares at her and carries on. Epps screams loudly as the ambulance doors close.
In Chimera,[3] Murphy is the "main killer" and the ship runs onto some rocks and begins to sink. Murphy and Epps survive until nearly the end but as the ship sinks, Murphy goes off to retrieve gold ingots. The weight of the gold and the time he loses in getting to it leads to Murphy's demise. As in the film, Katie helps Epps escape. Over time, the script underwent rewrites, and the psychological aspects of the script were all jettisoned in favor of making the film a slasher. It has been suggested that "The cast signed on based on this (original) draft ... and were sadly disappointed to find the script had been radically changed by Joel Silver and associates when they arrived to begin shooting."[4] According to Beck in the newly released directors commentary he mentioned that the September 11 attacks in the United States inspired the studio to make the film a more definitive fight between good and evil instead of trying to be nuanced about the corruption of man.
The idea of filming on a real ship was continually brought up, and a few ships were scouted for the possibility of being used as the Antonia Graza. "The temptation was always to shoot on the real thing," Beck says. "We actually visited a few [ships] , but every time we thought, 'How are we ever going to get a dolly through this alley? Or down this hallway?' When you're shooting you often have to punch through a wall in order to get the shot you need, and on a steel ship that's impossible. We knew the real thing would be far too limiting."[5]
Instead of using an actual ship, Australian visual effects company Photon VFX, who prior had worked on the 2002 film Scooby-Doo, was hired as the principal contractor for all visual effects. This allowed Warner Bros. to take full advantage of the wide spectrum of services offered including CGI, animation, miniatures, live-action, prosthetics, pyrotechnics and aerial, underwater and motion control cinematography.
The SS Andrea Doria served as the inspiration for the film's ship the Antonia Graza. Photon created a 35-foot 1/20th scale model of the ship, allowing the exterior shots to be a combination of CGI, miniature, and live-action footage.[6] For certain exterior shots a miniature just wouldn't work, so instead a full-scale forecastle and bow were constructed. "It was a full-scale replica, so it wouldn't have fit into a studio," Walker explains. "It also needed to have sky backgrounds surrounding it, so we built it on a hill to achieve the desired effect."
The majority of the film was shot on sets built on a sound stage[8] at Village Roadshow Studios.[citation needed] The only ship used in Ghost Ship was the tugboat Arctic Warrior[9] used by the main protagonists.[8] While filming the exterior shots on the tugboat, a feeding frenzy occurred in the water bringing 800-1000 sharks within 50 yards of the production and its stars.[10]
In February 2002, the 35-foot-long model of the Antonia Graza, made by Photon VFX, was taken out to Moreton Bay to film establishing shots of the ship adrift.[11] In early February, construction of the bow and foredeck of the full-scale replica of the Antonia Graza was getting underway at Newstead, Queensland. Construction, which lasted roughly six weeks, drew many curious residents and tourists that were hoping to get a look at the nearly 100-foot-tall (30m) massive hull that dominated the surrounding area.[12]
Dale Duguid, the creative director of Photon VFX, wanted to push the boundaries. There was a lot of pride for Ghost Ship since it was the largest visual effect contract completely done in Australia to date. Photon VFX filmed a real ocean-liner at sea off the coast of New South Wales, digitally removed the ship, but kept all of its movements, leaving nothing but ocean and sky. Then the tracking data was taken and in-put into a robotic filming system, which then filmed the 35-foot-long (10 m) miniature ship. The digital effects team then added 300 digital extras, in addition to digital water and smoke to make the scene appear as realistic as possible.
The dramatic scene, which features the derelict ballroom reverting to its former grand self, posed a problem for the effects crew. "That was the most difficult shot I've ever worked on," says Duguid. Filming took place on two different sets, the first being the decrepit ballroom which had been adrift for forty years. The second set was the luxurious ballroom, used in the opening scene with happy party guests having a grand time. "We were filming on a derelict set and a new set, and we shot 80 layers of that scene on a circular motion control track, each time with different things going on. Some we shot forwards, some backwards, some fast, some slow."[13]
The soundtrack album for Ghost Ship was released on November 5, 2002 on Varse Sarabande.[14][15] The songs "Not Falling" by Mudvayne and "Senza Fine" sung by Monica Mancini are not part of the soundtrack despite being featured in the film.
The score is described by Filmtracks.com as "tap [dancing] around some old genre cliches while diving head first into others, producing a score with drama, fright, and a slight hint of elegance at times as well."[16]
Warner Bros. in association with Hollywood.com sponsored a sweepstakes to promote the film beginning October 18, 2002, with the final drawing on November 1. Applicants could enter for the chance to win the grand prize dubbed the "Ghost Ship Prize Package" of promotional merchandise consisting of one Ghost Ship baseball hat, one spinning skull mug, one Ghost Ship shower CD player, and the Ghost Ship soundtrack. The runners up would receive just the baseball hat and mug.[19]
On March 28, 2003, Warner Home Video (currently known as Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment) released the film to VHS and DVD.[20] On October 26, 2018, Official Charts Company revealed Ghost Ship was the United Kingdom's 26th best-selling horror DVD/Blu-ray of all time.[21]
A collectors edition of Ghost Ship was produced by Shout! Factory and released on Blu-ray September 29, 2020. It featured a new interview with actor Isaiah Washington, and a new Audio commentary by director Steve Beck.[22]
c80f0f1006