Details

Release year: 2002

Storyline

A salvage crew discovers a long-lost 1962 passenger ship floating lifeless in a remote region of the Bering Sea, and soon notices that its long-dead inhabitants may still be on board.

Top credits

Directors

Steve Beck

Writers

Cast

Julianna Margulies — Epps
Gabriel Byrne — Murphy
Ron Eldard — Dodge
Desmond Harrington — Ferriman

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Did you know

• The film was originally conceived as a relatively bloodless psychological horror about four salvage crew members who turn against one another in greed and vitriol after being stranded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean aboard the remains of a cruise ship (The Chimera) believed to have been lost in the 1960s. The idea was to create The Shining (1980) on a boat. In this script, Murphy was actually the killer and after the boat crashes into rocks and begins to sink, he attempts to leave with the gold and inadvertently kills himself while Epps makes it out alive with Katie's help. Much of the gore in the film was not in the script. Two additional crew members were also written into the story. This script was drastically altered by one of the producers, Joel Silver. In a 2014 Drama Actress Roundtable discussion, Julianna Margulies said the original script is why she and the rest of the cast signed on to star, and once she got off the plane in Australia and was handed a totally different script, she was heartbroken; by then, though the actors were contractually bound and could not back out.

• In 2016, the media website ComingSoon named the film's opening scene one of the greatest in horror film history.

• The ghost captain tells Gabriel Byrne's character that the Antonio Graza rescued a ship called the Lorelei, eventually leading to the destruction of the Antonia Graza and the death of all its passengers. "Die Lorelei" is a German poem about a siren-type woman who lures boats to ruin and sailors to their deaths.