Horror Movie Review: Ghost Boat (2014)

Ghost Boat (also know as Alarmed) sees Samantha found not guilty in the case of who murdered her family. Details are light, a masked killer shot her parents dead one night in a clear, pre-meditated attack. Samantha got the blame because of her conflict with her father leading up to the murders.

Five years later, Samantha & her friends are taking a trip out to sea on her families’ yacht. She isn’t that comfortable about being on the boat which begs the question why, after 5 years, has she not offloaded it? Don’t worry about that. Ghost Boat will leave you with a lot of questions needing answering.

After an accident, Samantha & her ex-boyfriend are left alone on the boat resulting in the weird stuff getting started. She is locked inside & he is locked out.

Periodically the boat’s computer comes on & instructs her to mutilate herself in some way. It sets a timer & if she fails to do it before the time expires she is possessed & the mutilation happens anyway except with no pain medication.

It’s up to Samantha to uncover just why she is being tormented, secrets that will unveil the truth about her family & who was responsible that night.

A decent mystery & twist you might think. Well, no. Seeing as a ‘character’ is briefly introduced at the start then conveniently never seen again until the finale. It’s hardly a twist if you know nothing about the character involved beyond a throwaway couple of lines!

Ghost Boat suffers from an excruciatingly slow plot believing it is creating tension but actually just ends up being mind-numbingly boring. The acting doesn’t help. It’s not that they’re bad, they’re just bland. Forgettable & uninteresting people.

The film, early on, gets obsessed with having the ghostly figures of Samantha’s family appear in full of view of characters. The sort of thing that would be very hard to dismiss yet they always seem to shake it off as if they’re just seeing things! It’s infuriating as all of this doesn’t really lead anywhere.

The conclusion is as unsatisfying as the movie is overall. The only highlight being the passage of time that sees Samantha’s body become a patchwork of scars & stitches.