Death Ship
In all honesty, taking this at face value, it's not the worst VHS cover I've ever seen. In fact, the art on it is actually pretty decent, and the fact that they somehow managed to create a skull type face on a fucking boat is pretty impressive. But, it's still an old VHS box, and that means it's going to be subjected to my personal brand of hell. Let's talk about some smaller things first before diving into the artwork itself. I personally find it absolutely hilarious that on the back of the box they have the big bolded letters VHS, as if you somehow could mistake this for any other form of media, or there was any other form of media to mistake it for at the time, other than perhaps Beta. Maybe it was put there specifically for stupid people, and if so that's awfully nice of them, but either way it makes me laugh.
The back of the box also gives the possible watcher two still images to pick from, neither one giving any sort of context to the film; the first being a, I'm assuming since I don't hate myself enough to actually watch this majestic pile of crap, decomposing person who may or may not have been on the boat? Maybe it IS the boat, personified, I don't know. It's a nice image, but it doesn't really say shit about the movie itself. The second picture gives us a bit more context as the man holding the rifle appears to be in a captains uniform, but I'm surprised he managed to achieve that lofty of a career considering he thinks he can shoot a fucking boat. And let's tackle, for one moment, that hot mess of a tagline at the top of the front cover, which reads "Those who survive the ghost ship would be better off dead!"
Let's break this bad boy down, cause man, there's some problems here. First of all, let's address the elephant in the tagline which is that it calls it a GHOST ship, and the film is called DEATH ship. Semantics? Certainly. But I don't care, that's annoying. See, to me, a death ship is a ship that where you die upon contact with it, it's actively trying to kill you, where as a ghost ship is just the ghost OF a ship, and as we all know, ships aren't fucking sentient so they can't die and become ghosts. Again, semantics, and certainly "ghost ship" rolls off the tongue better than death ship does, but hey, this is my blog and I'm going to take issue with this. Unless it's a ghost who possesses a ship, but that's a whole other matter entirely.
But even more distressing than that poorly worded tagline is what it implies. See, to me, if you survive something, that means you've won. You've battled something and come out the other end alive and better for it. But this tagline is trying to tell you that if you survive the ghost ship, you'd be better off dead. No you wouldn't. Last time I checked, being alive was better than being dead, despite what my depression may tell me every day. What's gonna happen to these people if they survive it? Just don't go near fucking water again. It's a SHIP, it can't come onto land into your house. You're not going to wake up to thunder in the middle of the night and see it standing menacingly at the end of your bed. No. If you survive the ghost ship, you've SURVIVED THE GHOST SHIP and therefore you are ALIVE and that is BETTER THAN BEING DEAD. I don't know who wrote this tagline, but I'm fairly certain they don't know what the fuck the laws of mortality are.
Alright, with all that out oft he way, let's take a glance at the wikipedia page.
Now, this has nothing to do with the plot or whatever, but I would like to say that the description of the plot on wikipedia begins with the sentence "Prickly Captain Ashland", and boy, I hope to one day be called prickly. That's a great descriptor. It was released in 250 theaters in Texas and Florida on March 7th, 1980, and also Edmonton, Canada which is just not fair to canadians. They didn't do anything to deserve this. They're good people. Now the film page on wikipedia doesn't have a budget, because, well, let's face it, this film probably didn't have a budget, but it does have the box office tally, which equals a whopping $1.75 million dollars. What a success story. Everyone give it up for ghost ship, because no film before or since has ever topped those miraculous numbers. In case you don't know what sarcasm is, hello, welcome to my blog.
As I said at the start, the actual box art is not terrible. In fact, it's not even in the realm of bad. It's kinda genuinely cool. I mean, sure, it's still a stupid idea, and the fact that these morons think they can outrun of a ghost ship in a fucking rowboat is dumb as hell, but whoever did the artwork, who put this bad boy together, they knew what they were doing. Can't speak too much for the back of the box, but hey, it can't all be great. It can barely be good. So that's Deathship for you. An evil ship that's trying to kill its passengers. Honestly, of the films I've looked at so far on this blog, this is the one I'd be most interested in actually sitting down and viewing, partially because it's horror and partially because it sounds ridiculously stupid.
Here's a fun fact! According to a study by maritime lawyers (maritime is one of the best words in the english language, you cannot convince me otherwise, it is just fun to say) 356 people have died aboard cruise ships between 2002 and 2013, while another 21 went missing. I mean, let's be honest, you don't go "missing" on a ship. You fall off into the water and drown, right? Nobody's going to find you. But if that's how dangerous a normal ship is, just imagine how dangerous the ghost ship must be! Between ships sinking and planes going down, it's a miracle anyone ever goes anywhere.
And one last thing, before I go, I want to go back to that tagline. Literally ANYTHING would have been better than what they put there, and I've compiled a list at the bottom of this post for replacements of said tagline. If you worked on this film and wish to somehow invent a time machine, go back in time and use one of these taglines, just make the check out to future me. Thanks, and remember what the makers of ghost ship say: It's better to be dead than survive something!
AND NOW A LIST OF INFINITELY BETTER TAGLINES FOR "DEATHSHIP"
- Sink or Swim? It doesn't matter!
- It's dropping anchor...right on top of you!
- This vacation is total bullship!
- Your demise, dead ahead!
- You're cruisin' for a bruisin'!
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