The Ghost Ship with a Cargo of Wackiness

A cruise is cut short by Nazi ghosts aboard 1980's Death Ship. There are about ten genuinely interesting minutes here and a whole lot of silliness. Of course Wikipedia says this "is considered a cult classic." One of these days, I'm going to see a bad horror movie that no cult wants to claim. I know it's gonna happen some day.

George Kennedy plays Captain Ashland who's on the verge of retirement. He's handing command over to Trevor Marshall (Richard Crenna) who's already aboard with his family for Ashland's last voyage. And then, in a sequence too expensive to entirely film, the ship collides with another at night and only a little raft of survivors remains!

There are some shots of a flooded engine room, a falling piano and then, boom, half a dozen people on a raft. They soon come across the culprit, a rusty old freighter. The film appears to have used a real ship, both for exteriors and interiors, and as they start to explore the thing, I liked attention to details like the bad water coming through the pipes. Then things start to get really silly.

Among the survivors is a sexy young couple, Lori (Victoria Burgoyne) and Nick (Nick Mancusco). They take quarters on the haunted ship, have sex, then Lori has a shower but is shocked to find the water change to blood. Nick finds he's unable to open the shower door.

Not that he tried very hard! My god, you could get that thing open with a butter knife. But after one wack with a wooden plank, Nick runs off to find help. Meanwhile, Ashland's gone crazy and he carries the naked Lori up on deck where Trevor and Nick see him toss her into the sea.

Looks like Kennedy really tosses a full grown woman, too. Not bad for a man of 55. What do Trevor and Nick do? Do they toss Lori a rope ladder or one of the lifesavers visible right next to them in the shot? No, her lover Nick doesn't spare her a second glance, and they run off after Ashland. We never hear about Lori again!

Speaking of butter knives, and I kid you not, in the showdown between Trevor and Ashland, Trevor stabs Ashland with a butter knife. In the gut, through a dress uniform. And it knocks Ashland unconscious.

I could go on. But you can see it for yourself on Amazon Prime.

Movies Combine for Maximum Stuff

So the Alien frightened you, so the Terminator thrilled you. Now get ready for the Alien Terminator (aka Top Line), a 1988 action/adventure/Sci-Fi film starring Franco Nero, Deborah Moore, and with the friendly participation of George Kennedy. There's a goofy grace in this casually ridiculous mess.

Every big idea the movie delivers seems like it was coaxed out of a reluctant, inebriated old man who just wanted to be left alone. Most of the movie consists of a moustachioed Nero running around Columbia being chased by anonymous guys with guns who may be KGB, mafia, or Nazis. Director Nello Rossati seems to have no idea or interest in how audiences form attachments to characters and events.

One moment, Ted (Nero) is having lunch with a friend--then an abrupt jump cut immediately has Ted identifying the same friend's corpse in the morgue. Deborah Moore (daughter of Roger Moore) is introduced as an assister to that same friend and she starts following Ted around for no apparent reason. She trusts him without question when he tells her he's not guilty of the murders the government pins on him, and doesn't even blink when he tells her there's an alien spacecraft with what he identifies as a "16th century carrack" in the mountains.

Looks more like a 19th century balcony if you ask me. There's business about how alien technology is being kept hidden from the public but it's all very vague, mostly everything is just an excuse for guys to shoot at Franco Nero so he can narrowly escape in various ways. My favourite is when he hops into the back of a truck being driven by a middle aged man and woman, apparently chicken farmers, who are so drunk they just constantly laugh while the vehicle weaves about alarmingly on the road.

They're not even laughing at anything, for five or so minutes of film they're just aimlessly laughing.

Finally, June (Moore) joins Ted on the run and they at last witness the strange, expressionless, apparently invulnerable man. "Russian?" June speculates, maybe wondering if he's related to Dolph Lundgren's character from Rocky IV. But, no--he really is a machine!

So now there's a killer robot for some reason. He's good for another couple chase scenes, anyway, before Ted's icy ex-wife (Mary Stavin, Jerry's Icelandic girlfriend from Twin Peaks) travels from a New York high rise, in person, for some reason, to handle matters. Events occur, occasionally they bear some tentative relationship to each other.

There was always a smile on my face watching the movie, it was like watching a dream someone had while Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alien, and Terminator played on television. Alien Terminator is available on Amazon Prime under the title Top Line.

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