*Premise spoilers*
I wasn’t a fan of this one. Part of it, I’m sure, is just that I’m not a big horror person in general, but I’m pretty sure it’s also true that this isn’t a very good horror movie. Definitely confusing in places, and its construction leaves me feeling kind of disconnected from the main characters.
Anne Calder and her ex(?) Patrick come to the Queen Mary with a pitch for a new writing project about the ship’s history and ghost stories. While they’re there, something happens to their son Lukas during a haunted tour. When Anne and Patrick return to the ship, despite warnings from the creepy security guard who calls himself the captain, they’re after something much more important than their project.
I’ll start by saying that I didn’t completely dislike the film. The film jumps between the present day and 1938, and the flashbacks feature some interesting characters—I especially enjoy a sequence between a starstruck young girl and Fred Astaire, both passengers on the fateful voyage. There are some surprising moments of humor—a scene where Anne is scrabbling for purchase as she’s choked by a ghost is intercut with a scene of Patrick straining to reach up into a vending machine, with parallel shots of their hands. I also like that Lukas has dwarfism and, while there are allusions to teasing/trouble fitting in at a new school, it’s not really a “thing” in the story. There isn’t a plot reason for Lukas to have dwarfism, he just does.
Okay, when I say this is a confusing movie, I’m giving it full leeway for shadowy horror-movie logic. Those elements of the film actually do get decently explained over time, largely thanks to its many jumps between the present day and 1938, when a number of grisly murders happened aboard the ship. Even if it takes quite a while, we eventually find out what happened with the murders and how it ties to the present-day hauntings. Whether it makes sense is still up for grabs, but I do get what they’re going for.
What’s far less clear is the story of the main characters and their reactions to the creepy events unfolding. Let’s start with the relationship dynamics. Anne and Patrick might be exes, or separated, or together but just drifting apart. When he refers to Lukas as their son, she draws a hard line and insists, “My son,” even though Lukas calls Patrick “Dad”—while Patrick isn’t Lukas’s biological father, that’s clearly the position he’s held in Lukas’s life, and whatever’s going on between Anne and Patrick, it feels disingenuous of her to deny that. Anne is resistant to Patrick’s desire to reconcile and settle down together, calling it too “permanent” and telling him, “I just don’t believe in marriage,” but they all have the same last name. So are they married or not? I really don’t know what’s going on with them.
When it comes to their reactions to the ghosts/what’s going on with Lukas, the characters are greatly hampered by a narrative structure that deliberately holds back information to the audience for the sake of dramatic reveals later on. While I don’t mind the 1938 flashbacks, we also return several times to a flashback with Anne, Lukas, and Patrick in the present day. Again, we see this scene nonlinearly so the film can deliver twists, but it obscures what they do and don’t already know. This means that, when Anne and Patrick are on the Queen Mary, their responses often feel underwhelming. For a big chunk of the film, they don’t display much urgency, partly because it has yet to be revealed that they already knew some of this stuff going in. And if they’re not all that freaked out or confused a lot of the time, why should I be?
Naturally, this has an impact on the central performances. As Anne, Alice Eve often comes across as muted and detached, even though she’s a mother who’s had something creepy and distressing happen to her son. Unless she’s being actively chased/attacked by ghosts, she rarely has much of a reaction.
I’ll get to Patrick’s side of that coin in a minute. First, I quickly want to mention some of the other cast. I recognized Lenny Rush, who plays Lukas, from Ncuti Gatwa’s first season of Doctor Who, where he briefly played a young genius working for UNIT. The only other familiar face for me was Angus Wright, a British Hey It’s That Guy! that I’ve seen in lots of different things. Because he plays one of the 1938 characters, Wright doesn’t share any scenes with Joel Fry, but he was in Bank of Dave as Hugh’s boss.
All right, now let’s talk about Joel Fry as Patrick. Like Eve, he’s hamstrung because the film holds back just how much he does or doesn’t know about all the haunted stuff, so his reactions often feel too low-key for what’s happening. He also takes the brunt of the confusing relationship dynamics. We learn that Patrick has conceived this writing project in the hope that doing it together will help him and Anne patch things up. “You and Lukas would come home,” he explains. “We’d be family again.” He’s incredibly focused on this and repeatedly brings it up in moments where there are plainly bigger fish to fry. And yet, for all that he obviously loves Lukas and wants to be with him, he doesn’t seem at all bothered that Lukas briefly goes missing on his watch while they’re on the tour together, insisting to Anne, “We found him, no big deal.”
It all adds up to a lot of internal inconsistency, despite Fry’s efforts to make it all work. There are a few good things here, but it’s an uphill battle. I like how plainly delighted Patrick is to see Anne and Lukas when they first arrive at the Queen Mary. I like his quiet resolve to help Anne when they go back, even though he takes Anne’s distance from him to mean he isn’t “enough” for her. And I really like a scene later in the movie where Patrick and the creepy security guard/“captain” encounter each other in the midst of all the haunted goings-on.
Accent Watch
Generic American. As with American Sweatshop, it’s not outright bad but definitely sounds a bit iffy throughout.
Recommend?
In General – No. There are some interesting ideas here and it could’ve had potential, but the end result is too jumbled and sloppy
Joel Fry – Not a must. It’s a decent-sized role and he’s all right, but the script lets him down. He’s been much better in other things.
Warnings
Violence, disturbing imagery, language, drinking/smoking, and thematic elements (including suicide.)
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