Don't Believe the Hype

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

An American couple, another couple from New Zealand board a small ship for a trip from New Zealand to Fiji. The boat is owned by yet another couple. In an intro we hear a voice over by a little girl talking about the Ferryman who takes the dead to the afterlife if he gets paid. Why this entity needs or wants money, who knows. Also previously we witness a ship going through very rough seas and two guys beating each other up until one of the goes nuts, stabs the other guy and hacks him to pieces.Meanwhile the small boat encounters dense fog at night and hears a distress signal. They stop and go searching for the troubled boat and find the crazy survivor from the beating earlier. He goes crazy and stabs the Kiwi guy. He inherits the old man's giant back tattoo of a snake in the shape of an 8. Now he goes nuts and attacks the American guy, and so on. The knife somehow transfers the madness and every crazy person ends up with the tattoo.The New Zealand girl, a former nurse, keeps having visions of a little girl who died in her care. She took some sleeping pills and sleeps through the entire ordeal while everyone else is attacking each other. She has another vision and this time the girls gives her a coin, which will be key to calling the Ferryman and putting an end to all the craziness.This movie is about 30 minutes too long, and far too boring. Once you confine a bunch of uninteresting people on a small boat, there's not much to expect. Add to that fog and the night- can't gruesome things ever happen during the day? and you have a recipe for one lame movie. The Ferryman is a bit gory, there's the killing and gutting of a baby shark, the hacking to pieces of some guy, lots of blood, but not even that keeps our attention. The ending back on land is quite interesting but by then it's too late to save the movie.

I decided to knock just two points off this movie simply down to the pointless character depth probing that caused the story to linger needlessly near the beginning.But that's all... as this is one of the best horror movies I have seen in recent years. I have to agree with the previous reviewer, it's refreshing that the characters were people you can care about; some empathy is possible rather than just seeing a load of high school brats being sliced up one by one, as is the usual formula.Here, a few couples on a luxury voyage to Fiji investigate an abandoned boat in response to its distress call following the horrific opening scene. There, they find John Rhys-Davies the sole survivor, sick and weak, and rescue him. Unbeknownst to the crew, their voyage of fun and love is soon coming to an end as they picked up a being that has been escaping death (The Ferryman) for centuries using a mystical dagger that allows him to swap bodies...If you love horror movies, do not miss this roller-coaster ride from the New Zealand movie industry. Horror fans will adore watching the demonic being hopping from one body to another to survive aboard a luxury yacht. The film starts with a violent and gory scene fit for the demanding horror fans out there.John Rhys-Davies, what a catch for the movie! He is outstanding as the Greek rescued by the yacht's crew in response to his distress signal. The basic formula soon unwinds as the not-so-hapless crew is his prey for some great horror scenes offering plenty of ghoulish moments.Echoes of other films will come to mind where demonic possession is concerned. The atmosphere generates the necessary foreboding feeling that draws you into the unfolding chaos and terror of the macabre.Horror fans may have missed this one due to its surprising online reviews that support the contrary on it not being any kind of a masterpiece. But, as a horror movie fanatic, this movie supersedes most of the crappy teen horror movies and awful remakes hitting your screens lately. You will find the movie refreshing after some real dull not-so-scary movies this last couple of years.A must-see...

I've just got in from watching The Ferryman and felt I had to vent my frustration. This film had the potential to be excellent, I think, but it's badly let down by quite a few key points. Based on the mythic character of the Ferryman from Greek legend, who's only task was to carry people across from the land of the living to the land of the dead (was it the river Styx?), the premise was that someone who had 'died', and so was bound to 'cross over', had found a way to cheat death and stay on this side of 'the river'. He hadn't, in essence, paid the ferryman. So far so good, and a great set-up for a film - the character was essentially on the run from death and had been for hundreds (or was it thousands?) of years. He could've made a killing on property, either way. Anyway, the plot device to drive this story, though, was a dagger that allowed the bearer to 'switch' bodies, and thus stay one step ahead of the punting ghoul with the invoice of the title. This dagger had NO connection whatsoever, as far as I could see, to the Greek myth. Fair enough if you're expecting the audience to buy into one 'fantastical' concept, but TWO,totally unrelated ones? Is there a dagger that transfers souls in Greek mythology? I don't know of one... I'm prepared to be corrected though. And don't get me started on where that coin came from, either. Or the kid... That's not even my main gripe though. Here's where I think the film really let itself down: as the characters stab each other with the knife, and so transfer the evil soul from body to body (Wes Craven's Shocker?), some of these incidents occur off camera. Brilliant idea. So you don't really know which character is the baddie, right? Wrong. But it's still a brilliantly tense situation where the audience is thinking 'is she just cracking under the strain of seeing someone get stabbed/being trapped on a boat in the fog/not knowing what's going on?' or is she in fact the evil entity, right? WRONG again. The baddie is flagged up every single time cos there's a ruddy great tattoo that appears on their back when they're possessed. Nice one, Mr Director. Why not just put them in a Hi-Vis vest with a rotating bow-tie? Apart from this, the acting from the high-maintenance blonde is titanically bad, as is the work from the Maori chap who's as wooden as the decking. The Ferryman himself gets about 5 minutes screen time, and seeing as how he's quite a terrifying looking chap, that's a Darth Maul-esqe waste. The direction in general is not dynamic enough, and some scenes linger a couple of painful seconds too long.. reminding me of the classically bad soap opera, Sunset Beach... but the music, and the performance of the bolshie Cock-er-ney captain were quite enjoyable. All in all, if you're after body-swapping horror, go for Denzel Washington in Fallen. That's got better music, too... Ti-i-i-ime, is on my siiide, yes it is....

Crew on a yacht voyage from New Zealand to Figi run into a creepy fog that never seems to lift and find a mysterious ship adrift with an equally strange survivor on board. This mysterious survivor(John Rhys-Davies)is actually merely a human host for this benevolent male spirit who moves from body to body to escape the Ferryman using this unusual knife as passage. We watch as members of the crew fall one by one as the spirit flees one individual into another to escape possible harm..the chilling part of the film is how this person treats those he harms, seemingly enjoying his handiwork as others die not knowing who is the one invaded. The evil spirit is cunning and devious and uses his element of surprise(like a pod alien, he can leap into a new human host tricking those around him)for a violent advantage.When the male spirit switches bodies with vacationer Zane(Julian Arahanga), he tosses the cancer-ridden Greek overboard. Zane will swim to the other ship and his expertise in driving and maintaining water vessels will come in handy as he follows close behind the yacht. He has a wife on board, Kathy(Amber Sainsbury)who is suffering horrifying memories regarding the death of a badly facially scarred girl and this drives Zane to continue. Meanwhile, his body is being used and dumped by the spirit as body-switching occurs until there are few characters left in the film.If one can get past the silly premise of the Ferryman, coin, and knife that causes body exchange, then there's some intense entertainment in store. I felt as I watched it that there will undoubtedly be a few rolling their eyes and shrugging their shoulders at the whole film. But, the spirit is pure evil and seeing the cast change personalities as the body switching takes place(adopting the "Ten Little Indians" theme)is kind of fun. We see the violent carnage that occurs as he enjoys destroying others both physically and psychologically.