One of my bigger ratings mess-ups. It's embarrassing that I left this mediocrity sitting in the top of my "100 Best Horror Films" list for so many years.
This is one of the more extreme examples of why I can't always trust my old ratings (and reviews). I had this nonsense at 8/10, but now I know better than to have this anywhere near the top 100. This happens relatively rarely, this amount of misjudgment.
I've never done any drugs (believe it or not), but I must have been on a potent cocktail-soup of Bolivian mushrooms when I gave this a high rating, almost 20 years ago. It does get exciting at times and most of it is not boring, but the far-fetchedness of it and the sheer stupidity do their bit in destroying the film.
A U. S. sub downs a British ship BY MISTAKE, and as a result THREE of its top officers try to cover up their error by spontaneously deciding to ASSASSINATE the captain, who is trying to save the survivors.
Translation: the American Navy was awash with psychopaths who'd sacrifice 100s of innocent lives - on their own side - at the drop of a hat. Additionally, like some feral barbarians they had zero loyalty to the chain of command, would actually resort to drastic measures such as murder, as if an error of this magnitude could actually be covered up anyway, as if it were some minor typo. Not one but THREE in the crew agree with this psychotic decision. One crew member, OK, that'd be acceptable, but three, and all at once, in unison, agreeing to kill a captain - instead of trying to somewhat rectify a very bad situation by helping him pick up the survivors?
I suppose the writer must have assumed that the military's recruitment used to take place in loony bins, deathrows, and the mafia. Yes, that must be it: the military used to recruit its staff among the $cum of the Earth, then hand out promotions based on who has the lowest IQ and the highest levels of psychopathy. What other explanation could there be?
Frankly, this is why America needs another war on their own home soil. 150 years is way too long. They've gone too soft in the head. We've had tons of liberal crappolas about serial-killer cops, about cynical genocidal army generals out to destroy American civilians (often just for fun), but now they'd gone too far ("now" being 2002 admittedly) when even WW2 personnel aren't sacred to these spoiled, clueless, "progressive", dweebs.
The premise in itself is not only an insult to all of the poor shlucks who died at sea during WW2, it is also an insult to our intelligence, because if the U. S. Navy had been this incompetent, this disloyal, this stupid, and this monstrous, we'd all be speaking German and Japanese now, without a shadow of a doubt.
The movie fails despite generating some excitement, simply based on this mega-stupid twist. Not to mention the daft ending, with the new captain going totally over-the-top, becoming a ridiculous character out of a bad John Woo movie.
Then there's further malarkey regarding how the murdered captain "takes revenge" on his three assassins by killing nearly his ENTIRE submarine crew! Laughable. Why kill all the wrong people first? Why not start with the three guilty ones and end it there? Just because the captain turned into a vengeful ghost doesn't mean he should have turned into an imbecile too. Very lame, lazy writing.
Besides, why do movie ghosts so often behave like complete and utter dolts? Does the afterlife hand out free lobotomies to everyone? There is some major contradiction here, too: why does a ghost get to be clever in terms of his traps, attacks and "spooky pranks" - yet totally stupid when it comes to the basics - such as whom to kill? He is a clever enough ghost to snidely torture the submarine's occupants - yet he never realizes that what he SHOULD be doing is killing of the three guys who murdered him. Very simple! Even a plankton would understand this ultra-basic concept. A military plankton is murdered by three sneaky, evil plankton, so the murdered plankton exacts revenge as a ghost on his murderers. It's that simple.
But logic is never an easy thing for inept, lazy writers.
The last 20-30 minutes is garbage.
The special-effects are pretty poor too, but that's not even a complaint, especially compared to the daft plot.
This is one of the more extreme examples of why I can't always trust my old ratings (and reviews). I had this nonsense at 8/10, but now I know better than to have this anywhere near the top 100. This happens relatively rarely, this amount of misjudgment.
I've never done any drugs (believe it or not), but I must have been on a potent cocktail-soup of Bolivian mushrooms when I gave this a high rating, almost 20 years ago. It does get exciting at times and most of it is not boring, but the far-fetchedness of it and the sheer stupidity do their bit in destroying the film.
A U. S. sub downs a British ship BY MISTAKE, and as a result THREE of its top officers try to cover up their error by spontaneously deciding to ASSASSINATE the captain, who is trying to save the survivors.
Translation: the American Navy was awash with psychopaths who'd sacrifice 100s of innocent lives - on their own side - at the drop of a hat. Additionally, like some feral barbarians they had zero loyalty to the chain of command, would actually resort to drastic measures such as murder, as if an error of this magnitude could actually be covered up anyway, as if it were some minor typo. Not one but THREE in the crew agree with this psychotic decision. One crew member, OK, that'd be acceptable, but three, and all at once, in unison, agreeing to kill a captain - instead of trying to somewhat rectify a very bad situation by helping him pick up the survivors?
I suppose the writer must have assumed that the military's recruitment used to take place in loony bins, deathrows, and the mafia. Yes, that must be it: the military used to recruit its staff among the $cum of the Earth, then hand out promotions based on who has the lowest IQ and the highest levels of psychopathy. What other explanation could there be?
Frankly, this is why America needs another war on their own home soil. 150 years is way too long. They've gone too soft in the head. We've had tons of liberal crappolas about serial-killer cops, about cynical genocidal army generals out to destroy American civilians (often just for fun), but now they'd gone too far ("now" being 2002 admittedly) when even WW2 personnel aren't sacred to these spoiled, clueless, "progressive", dweebs.
The premise in itself is not only an insult to all of the poor shlucks who died at sea during WW2, it is also an insult to our intelligence, because if the U. S. Navy had been this incompetent, this disloyal, this stupid, and this monstrous, we'd all be speaking German and Japanese now, without a shadow of a doubt.
The movie fails despite generating some excitement, simply based on this mega-stupid twist. Not to mention the daft ending, with the new captain going totally over-the-top, becoming a ridiculous character out of a bad John Woo movie.
Then there's further malarkey regarding how the murdered captain "takes revenge" on his three assassins by killing nearly his ENTIRE submarine crew! Laughable. Why kill all the wrong people first? Why not start with the three guilty ones and end it there? Just because the captain turned into a vengeful ghost doesn't mean he should have turned into an imbecile too. Very lame, lazy writing.
Besides, why do movie ghosts so often behave like complete and utter dolts? Does the afterlife hand out free lobotomies to everyone? There is some major contradiction here, too: why does a ghost get to be clever in terms of his traps, attacks and "spooky pranks" - yet totally stupid when it comes to the basics - such as whom to kill? He is a clever enough ghost to snidely torture the submarine's occupants - yet he never realizes that what he SHOULD be doing is killing of the three guys who murdered him. Very simple! Even a plankton would understand this ultra-basic concept. A military plankton is murdered by three sneaky, evil plankton, so the murdered plankton exacts revenge as a ghost on his murderers. It's that simple.
But logic is never an easy thing for inept, lazy writers.
The last 20-30 minutes is garbage.
The special-effects are pretty poor too, but that's not even a complaint, especially compared to the daft plot.