[The Ferryman]
Plot:The story of a group of twenty-something's who charter a boat to Fiji for the trip of a lifetime, before stumbling upon an evil that demands vengeance at any cost.

Cast:John Rhys-Davies, Kerry Fox, Sally Stockwell, Amber Sainsbury, Tamer Hassan, Craig Hall, Julian Arahanga, Lawrence Makoare.

My Thoughts:This boat is sunk!

Review:When the premise of a film is as intriguing as the premise of "The Ferryman", you can't help but get excited about what you're about to watch. But then when other premises mention little plot bits like "body hopping", you can't help but feel a sense of dread. Most horror films that play with the body-jumping-spirit plot outline usually do so because they can't really come up with anything better to do with themselves. In the framework of an indie horror picture, it's even worse. "The Ferryman" follows a group of friends who go out for a sail on the high seas. As they move along on their journey, they catch a shark via a fishing pole. After the catch, they gut the shark only to discover that it's eaten a human hand. Where'd the hand come from?

This is explained in a scene at the beginning of the film where Rhys-Davies character is apparently possessed and having a WWE-styled rumble with some dude on a boat. If the discovery of the hand wasn't bad enough, they soon receive a distress call from the same boat mentioned above, and they find Rhys-Davies character in the boat. But of course he's possessed by the spirit of this ferryman demon, so bringing him aboard?? BAD IDEA. So of course the morons on the other boat do it anyway, despite him having a crazy look in his eye, and having an awfully deep, demonic, gruff, voice.

You know, the sort of things that would scare any normal, right-thinking person away. And from here we're treated to a paranoid-horror-thriller which you could call "Terror at sea", "Death Ship", or any other bullshit name you could think up. Of course the filmmakers decided to title it "The Ferryman" after the mythological figure which acted in Greek mythology, as the ferryman of hell, who took dead people across the lakes of fire if they paid him one greek silver coin. Those who failed to pay, were left to wander the banks of said lake for one hundred years.

Now knowing all of this, the producers of the film obviously thought the title "The Ferryman" would score cash from a few curious film buffs. But like most indie horror films, the box art is just used to bait a trap of boredom, and soap-opera bullshit. Which is really all this film is, boredom and soap-opera bullshit. The main characters are New Zealanders, with one Greke guy thrown in. Yet they all carry themselves as white american teenagers, engaging in the same stupid arguements, flirtations, etc. The fact that these main characters are also listed as 20-somethings in the premise, but look about 34 is another screw up within the movie.

Anyways, this body hopping demon decides to wreak havoc aboard their boat by jumping bodies and making the group members kill one another. Who didn't see that coming eh? I bet you thought he was gonna sit down with them first and have some tea and cookies. The film then plays out in typical fashion like you'd expect. The demon manages to take out alot of people before someone catches on after having it all explained to them by a little girl who apparently is a ghost of some sort.

Oddly enough, the little girl doesn't fit anywhere into the story, except as a weird twist of fate because somehow....of all the things the lost spirit of a little girl could do like go for ice cream, or see her mom again...she decides to warn a bunch of dopes on a boat about how it was a bad idea to pick up that oceanhiker. Then it's now that persons responsibility to stop the malicious ferryman. The problem is, by the time it gets sort of good?? We really don't care. The boredom has set in for too long, the characters are too annoying, and the story has collapsed completely. When the group is chopped down to just 3 or four, you'd think the ferryman would make his move.

But for some reason, the writers decided to have him brag to his victims about his body-jumping abilities before killing them. I kid you not, and there's nothing worse than a body-jumping spirit that brags about being a body-jumping spirit. All in all the ferryman never causes any real mischief. He just preys on the dividing attitudes and issues already embedded within the hearts and souls of the boats passengers.

But to be honest if he had just decided to kill one guy, and steal all of their rations and gasoline...leaving them all on the high seas foodless and stuck for weeks, these rivalries would've come out anyway and I'm pretty sure the end result would've still have been the same. Evil spirit or no evil spirit. The ending of the film is interesting and mildly clever, but the fact that it suggests a sequel is so offensive that it's more angering than anything else. "The Ferryman" is one ocean tour that you won't wanna take. You're likely to suffer from severe cases of boredom and seasickness at the same time.

Positives:A decent twist of an ending.

Negatives:A lack of entertainment value, a boring script, intolerable characters who looked older than the synopsis claims, and a lame excuse for a villain.

Overall:Half a star out of 4.





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