The Ferryman starts on the New Zealand coast as four holidaying teens board a yacht for hire to enjoy a relaxing six day cruise to Fiji, once aboard the Captain & his wife set sail & the journey begins. However the cruise hits problems when they hear a Morse code SOS & in trying to find it's source end up in a huge bank of thick fog, eventually they find a stranded boat & a lone surviving Greek sailor (John Rhys-Davies) whom they rescue & take back to the yacht. Back on-board the yacht the sailor seems alright & a decent laugh but things turn nasty when he finds out that he has cancer since there is in fact a thousands of years old evil demonic spirit inside the sailors body & since the body will soon die from cancer it needs to find a new body & a way to get back to dry land & have a little fun in the process...
This British New Zealand co-production was directed by Chris Graham & I have to say that I pretty much despised The Ferryman, reading some of the positive reviews on the IMDb I wonder both if I saw the same film & just how people's opinions can differ so much. The Ferryman takes several concepts & ideas ripped-off from much better films & throws them all together in a rather boring & poorly written fashion, there are elements from The Fog (1980) with the constant fog obviously, the basic set-up & much of the plot feels like it has been lifted from Dead Calm (1989) with the isolated boat in the open ocean & it's passengers being terrorised & the whole body swapping possession angle feels like it could have come from any number of 80's horror films like The Thing (1982) or The Hidden (1987). The character's are such an unlikable lot that all the development & build-up felt like I was having teeth pulled & the profanity riddled dialogue sounds exactly like a cheap horror flick. The whole body possession angle is totally wasted too, in a film like The Thing the tension & mystery elements are pushed to the limit but here the filmmakers always make it clear who is possessed so there's never any paranoia, mistrust, surprises or twist's which makes the film somewhat of a predictable precession. The so-called plot is also very sparse, no background is given whatsoever to the demon or it's origins or even how it was on the boat to start with, the eventual solution given to the survivor to defeat the demon is given to her by a ghost girl in her dream for no apparent reason & to add to the ridiculousness of it she pretty much defeats the demon with a lesbian kiss! If this demon was so clever why did it murder & molest people all the time? Surely that's going to attract unwanted attention? Why not possess a body, keep it's mouth shut & just wait until the yacht hit dry land? The pacing is slow, it felt like The Ferryman went on for hours & I just found it a very unlikable viewing experience.
Set almost entirely on the open Ocean on a yacht The Ferryman is a quite boring looking film actually & the dark dull foggy background doesn't help. I mean unlike in The Fog the fog in The Ferryman isn't used for any sort of atmospheric effect. I am not sure why this is actually called The Ferryman, is it referring to the Ferryman of Charon from Greek mythology? If so I can't see any specific links, the plot plays more like the body possession horror of The Thing rather than a story of a mythological being. There's some blood splatter but not much gore (this is only rated '15' here in the UK), there's a severed hand, a cut open Shark, someone is glassed in the face & neck & there are a few quick stabbings. There is supposedly a sex scene here but the guy is clearly seen to be wearing underwear & the girl was wearing a bra so there's no nudity whatsoever.
Production wise the film is alright, it has reasonable production values but it has a bland look about it. Actually shot in New Zealand. Another aspect of The Ferryman I disliked was the terrible acting, there's so much over the top crying, shouting & exaggerating it actually starts to become cringe-worthy.
The Ferryman is a film that I didn't really know anything about going in to watch it & I wish I still didn't know anything about it as it was a pretty painful viewing experience for me although there are some out there who seem to like it for whatever reason.
This British New Zealand co-production was directed by Chris Graham & I have to say that I pretty much despised The Ferryman, reading some of the positive reviews on the IMDb I wonder both if I saw the same film & just how people's opinions can differ so much. The Ferryman takes several concepts & ideas ripped-off from much better films & throws them all together in a rather boring & poorly written fashion, there are elements from The Fog (1980) with the constant fog obviously, the basic set-up & much of the plot feels like it has been lifted from Dead Calm (1989) with the isolated boat in the open ocean & it's passengers being terrorised & the whole body swapping possession angle feels like it could have come from any number of 80's horror films like The Thing (1982) or The Hidden (1987). The character's are such an unlikable lot that all the development & build-up felt like I was having teeth pulled & the profanity riddled dialogue sounds exactly like a cheap horror flick. The whole body possession angle is totally wasted too, in a film like The Thing the tension & mystery elements are pushed to the limit but here the filmmakers always make it clear who is possessed so there's never any paranoia, mistrust, surprises or twist's which makes the film somewhat of a predictable precession. The so-called plot is also very sparse, no background is given whatsoever to the demon or it's origins or even how it was on the boat to start with, the eventual solution given to the survivor to defeat the demon is given to her by a ghost girl in her dream for no apparent reason & to add to the ridiculousness of it she pretty much defeats the demon with a lesbian kiss! If this demon was so clever why did it murder & molest people all the time? Surely that's going to attract unwanted attention? Why not possess a body, keep it's mouth shut & just wait until the yacht hit dry land? The pacing is slow, it felt like The Ferryman went on for hours & I just found it a very unlikable viewing experience.
Set almost entirely on the open Ocean on a yacht The Ferryman is a quite boring looking film actually & the dark dull foggy background doesn't help. I mean unlike in The Fog the fog in The Ferryman isn't used for any sort of atmospheric effect. I am not sure why this is actually called The Ferryman, is it referring to the Ferryman of Charon from Greek mythology? If so I can't see any specific links, the plot plays more like the body possession horror of The Thing rather than a story of a mythological being. There's some blood splatter but not much gore (this is only rated '15' here in the UK), there's a severed hand, a cut open Shark, someone is glassed in the face & neck & there are a few quick stabbings. There is supposedly a sex scene here but the guy is clearly seen to be wearing underwear & the girl was wearing a bra so there's no nudity whatsoever.
Production wise the film is alright, it has reasonable production values but it has a bland look about it. Actually shot in New Zealand. Another aspect of The Ferryman I disliked was the terrible acting, there's so much over the top crying, shouting & exaggerating it actually starts to become cringe-worthy.
The Ferryman is a film that I didn't really know anything about going in to watch it & I wish I still didn't know anything about it as it was a pretty painful viewing experience for me although there are some out there who seem to like it for whatever reason.