When the plot of a film rests entirely on a small group of young sea goers who just happen to stumble upon a supposedly haunted and abandoned ship, a big red flag waves frantically in front of the movie’s cover that usually reads…”YYYar, stay far away lad!”  Maybe abandoned ships and ghost pirates belong in Scooby Doo and not at home on my DVD rack…but who know?  I just think you’d be better off renting Dead Calm, or even Jaws for that matter, because, in my opinion, writers, there hasn’t been an effective horror film set at entirely at sea.   Ghost Rig, Virus, and Ghost Ship are all rather dull films that feel more uncomfortably claustrophobic than at all scary, so I suspected that The Ferryman, despite some of the more positive things that I’ve heard surrounding the film, would be that much more of the same.  But au contraire; The Ferryman, once the film gets rolling, delivers an exciting and thrilling spin on a plot that has been long over done.  What’s the structure you might ask?  Well…think of the movie Fallen with Denzel Washington.  Now put that on a boat.  Need I say more?
       
Now, before you completely lose interest in this film, let me tell you about some of the things that The Ferryman does fantastically well.  In The Ferryman’s case (or with any film that features a demon or murderous soul who shifts between the bodies of a set group of characters), the actors must pretend they are now that wicked soul or other relevant character.  The seven actors in this film all do a marvelous job portraying not only their own characters, but, when the film calls for another soul switch, the actors do an even more spectacular job at pretending they are each other.  Without these fine talents, The Ferryman would have fallen flat on its face, but, thanks to the fine acting, you will more than likely be fully entertained throughout this surprisingly thrilling tale set at sea.
       
The Ferryman takes place entirely on a yacht, and Chris Graham, the film’s director, does a fine job, making use of the enclosed spaces.  In retrospect, the actors might as well have been on a ship five times its size because the scenes never seem repetitive due to the lack of a more diverse set.  Fog and other lighting effects are also used brilliantly to cast a much more eerie setting over an already frightening scenario, and, even though you might feel a tad claustrophobic at times by watching so closely, Graham once again uses the fog to make it seem as if the deck of the ship is endless in length.
       
The composer also does an amazing job using the soundtrack of this film as an additive to its overall presentation.  The style points (mostly slow motion in foggy settings) are welcomed to the feature.  Toward the end of the film, and certainly during a brutal fight between two of our main characters, as the soundtrack booms and the camera effects begin to shine through, you’d swear that Guy Ritchie or other comparable company suddenly filched the camera and crew.  Still, the visual style manages to come across surprisingly fresh, even though Graham’s influences may be somewhat obvious.  Either way, you don’t see this level of film making in horror movies very often and in The Ferryman it is sparse but welcome.
       
Towards the beginning and end of the film, when the actual story behind The Ferryman and his haunting tale begin to unfold, the film tends to stumble a bit with what is actually the entire back story behind all the reason to why our characters were ever in this predicament to begin with.  We’ve all heard the stories at sea that deal with sunken treasure and ghost pirates, but the antagonist in this particular film is a bit silly.   You’d be better off making the tooth fairly an evil spirit.  Luckily, Graham’s visual style and attention to his craft  make up for the screenplay’s shortcomings.  Still, they should have just stuck with ghost pirates! 

I was quite surprised by The Ferryman.  The gore is very well done, and the lighting effects are simply fantastic.  Once you hit the halfway point of the film it’s all very much like one giant rollercoaster ride and in the end, and is, by far one, of the most entertaining and frightening films to set sail at sea.  Recommended.

But now!..."let me tell you about the time I almost died"…….