RiffTrax Presents: The Ghost Ship

When we hear the words "Ghost Ship," our minds immediately turn to the classic 2002 not-very-good supernatural thriller of that name (Remember the scene where the passengers get cut in half by that wire? Yeah, that's all anyone remembers). This is not that film. This is The Ghost Ship from Val Lewton, a producer famous for trying to twist any title RKO assigned him to fit whatever film he fancied making that month. Few can forget the romantic, dreamy artistry of his moody noir masterwork Buckets of Giblets and a Well Stacked Dame, his intense psychological chamber drama Herbie Goes Bananas When He Finds Out His Wife is Cheating on Him With Another Car, or his screwball comedy For God's Sake, Val, Less of the Pretension, It's Supposed to be like the Wolf Man. The RKO bosses loved him. Long story short, this is a Ghost Ship without any ghosts. This isn't even a ghost ship like the Mary Celeste, which we only bring up so Ian can pedantically point out it's often erroneously called the Marie Celeste, which it hardly ever is now, because of pedantic bores like him. Or should that be "he? WARNING: Contains frequent jokes relating to the fact that the lead actor's surname is Dix, which makes Matthew the happiest he's been since there was a character called General Wang in Horror Express.