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Haunted Boat (2005)

DVD Cover (Lions Gate)
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Overall Rating 23%
Overall Rating
Ranked #9,197
...out of 20,322 movies
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Haunted Boat is a mystical, mind-twisting psychological horror film about six teenagers going on a boat trip and getting lost in parallel dimensions where they have to face their greatest fears. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: July 24, 2007
Ever since camcorders and high-end computers hit the market and dropped in price, creating your own movie has been relatively simple: you just need to grab a few friends, screw around in the backyard, spend a week or two editing it on your computer, and you've got yourself a direct-to-video release that Lions Gate or Anchor Bay will snap up in a second. This low barrier to entry is a good thing overall, because there are plenty of people out there who are extremely talented and full of creative ideas but can't quite scrape together the money needed to make a big-budget film that will wind up in theaters. Then there are those valley kids with rich daddies who decide that it would be "like, super cool!" to take a camera out on a boat and "y'know, make their own movie and stuff!" That's fine and all, but how the fuck did this get a distribution deal?

Plot? You want a plot? Six young adults head out on a boat (that one of them got for their birthday - I told you they were rich kids) with intentions of drinking, smoking, fucking, and partying for the weekend. They do all of the above for a while, and that is the first third of the film. Then, one of them dies (a pro swimmer drowns!), and the survivors sit around and tell ghost stories for a while: that's the second third of the film. Finally, all but one of these idiots disappear or die in utterly mundane ways, the last one alive wakes up to reveal that it was all a dream, the credits roll, and that is that. Yes, I spoiled it, and congratulations on wasting ninety minutes of your life if you managed to make it through the running time.

So, what went wrong with this movie? Well, how about if I tell you what they got right: there's a couple of women who spend about twenty minutes in skimpy bikinis, and one of them even flashes her tits for the camera. That's it, those are the only positive things that I can say about this movie.

Let me tell you about the acting here. Now, there's award-winning acting, great acting, good acting, "well, at least he tried" acting, and horrible acting: the people found in this movie manage to sink one level lower with their actions here (I can't rightfully call it acting). Watching this horrendous display of ineptitude may have been a little easier to sit through had they had anything worthwhile to say, but the script doesn't get a whole lot smarter than "the toilet is broke, no more pooping" and "I'm not sitting with her, she's epileptic." The sad part is that those lines and the many others like them weren't supposed to be funny.

I'll confess that I didn't expect an award-winner from the latest Lions Gate DTV release, but I did expect something remotely resembling a horror film: a couple of cheap scares, some gore, maybe even some neat makeup jobs on the inevitable ghostly villain. Strike two: the best you'll get from this is a CGI shark that looks like a reject from Finding Nemo (the thing is actually smiling - and again, it wasn't supposed to be funny) and a couple of random glimpses of a cheap Halloween mask in the background. Don't think that there's a killer or ghost here by that Halloween mask remark; no, the cast members will be chatting and carrying on, and we'll literally see a mask superimposed in the background courtesy of some CGI "magic."

An effective musical score can help enhance a film, but apparently, nobody ever told that to director Olga Levens. The soundtrack for this film features at least twenty different songs from every genre imaginable (punk, emo, metal, techno, new-age, etc.), and they pop in and out at random intervals throughout the film. Look, I know that not everyone has access to a full orchestra for their score, but who in their right mind thought that a shitty emo song would be the perfect compliment to a scene that was supposed to be somewhat scary? Why would you put some sort of house / techno beat in a scene where a woman is supposed to be breaking down and going into hysterics? Olga, are you completely fucking tone-deaf, or did you just not give a shit?

You know things are looking bad for a film when you catch yourself looking at the clock to see how much longer it's going to run for. When you catch yourself doing that eight minutes into the running time, you know that you're in for a wretched piece of excrement. Although I assume this is all but a formality if you've read through this review, I have to go with a 0/10.
bluemeanie #1: bluemeanie - added July 24, 2007 at 1:56pm
This looks almost as wretched as "Shark Attack 3". Think I can just forget ever watching this pile o'shit.
Ginose #2: Ginose - added July 9, 2008 at 12:54am
I can't beleive I sat through this... I... I seriously couldn't bring myself to move. I just sat there and let the credits roll by hoping wiht all my heart that a cartoon chimp would appear on the screen and make fun of me for having sat through it.
I then took a long, cold shower and waded in shame. -2.2/10 for having taken a bit of my soul with it.
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