The Haunted Sea
The Haunted Sea | |
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Concorde Pictures | |
Distributed by | Concorde Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 73 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Haunted Sea is a 1997 American
Plot
Near the
In the kitchen, Medina discovers Jameson, traumatized but alive. The Hades' captain hints that he, too, fell under the treasure's evil influence and, while possessed, turned against his crew mates. To escape his predicament, he flees and commits suicide. Eventually, human presence on the Hades is whittled down to just Johnson and first mate Bergren. They rig the cursed ship with explosives. The monster kills Bergren, and Johnson jumps overboard just as the Hades is blown apart. She's rescued by the freighter, but is revealed to be possessed herself.
Cast
- Krista Allen as 2nd Mate Johnson
- Don Stroud as Chief Foster
- Duane Whitaker as Andy Delgado
- Jeff Phillips as Charlie Lane
- James Brolin as Captain Ramsey
- Joanna Paculaas 1st Mate Bergren
- Ronald William Lawrence as Marcus Talbot
- Eb Lottimer as Doug Ward
- Leonard Donato as Chief Engineer Anderson
Production
The film was pitched internally as "
Although the film takes place at sea, there was no budget to actually shoot the actors in such surroundings. Corman demanded that ship sets from
The creature was a dinosaur left from Carnosaur 2, outfitted with a different head by John Carl Buechler. Its mobility was severely limited, including the opening and closing of the mouth. Golden tried to film around it, but Corman insisted that the effects were satisfactory and that the creature should be shown more. Following her appearances as Emmanuelle, Krista Allen was not enthusiastic about the film's instances of nudity, and Golden acknowledged that the first such scene was not gracefully integrated into the picture.[2] In the finished film, the director was credited as "Daniel Patrick", while effects man Buechler was credited only through the name of his company Magical Media Industries.[3][4]
Release
While the film supposed to premiere on Showtime as part of the Roger Corman Presents collection, the channel's executives deemed its quality unacceptable and rejected it.[2] The Haunted Sea therefore debuted on a VHS from Corman's own New Horizons Home Video[5] on November 17, 1997.[6] New Horizon re-issued it on DVD on July 20, 2004.[7]
Reception
Writing for News Publications' TV Guide and Motion Picture Annual, Michael Gingold awarded the film one and a half star on a scale of one to five, and dismissed it as "a slackly directed pastiche of genre cliches, stock footage, and dialogue like 'It was like a nightmare, only I wasn't sleeping'", whose creature was reused from a prior film "with an especially new bogus head attached".[4] Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club derided the "less-than-horrifying monster, which resembles a midget trapped inside a cheap, store-bought dinosaur costume" but acknowledged that "the film is remarkably competent, aided by a relatively strong cast, professional if unremarkable direction by Dan Golden", adding that "it's at least a lasting testament to the remarkable thrift and monetary ingenuity of the folks over at the New Horizons stable."[8]
Charles Tatum of eFilmCritic gave the film a single star on a scale of one to five, writing that the special effects "suck", the direction is "pretty bland, something to be expected when you are limited to three sets and reels of 1960s [sic] Mexico travelogue footage", and "not a whole lot makes sense".
References
- ^ Scapperotti, Dan (January 1997). "Emmanuelle: Krista Allen". Femme Fatales. Vol. 5, no. 7. Forest Park: Clarke, Frederick S. pp. 52–53.
- ^ a b c d e Scapperotti, Dan (May 1997). "Golden Films: Haunted Sea". Femme Fatales. Vol. 5, no. 11. Forest Park: Clarke, Frederick S. pp. 16–17.
- ^ "The Haunted Sea (1997)". Allmovie.com. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ ISBN 0933997000.
- ^ "The Haunted Sea". VHS Collector.com. VHS Collector. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ "The Haunted Sea (1997)". Rotten Tomatoes.com. Flixer. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ MacLean, Doug; Carver, Michael E. "The Web's most complete, updated daily and only downloadable list of Region 1 DVDs". Michael's Movie Mayhem. Archived from the original on March 21, 2023.
- ^ Rabin, Nathan (March 29, 2002). "The Haunted Sea". avclub.com. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
- ^ Tutum, Charles (March 31, 2004). "Haunted Sea". efilmcritic.com. Archived from the original on June 21, 2018.
- ISBN 0345420969.
- ISSN 1095-371X.
External links
- The Haunted Sea at AllMovie
- The Haunted Sea at IMDb
- The Haunted Sea at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Haunted Sea at the TCM Movie Database