Nothing says Canadian Horror quite like George Kennedy. Not that I know how many Canadian Horror movies George Kennedy has starred in, it’s just that, if you think about it, if you’re watching a horror movie and it’s got George Kennedy in it, it’s probably Canadian.

Death Ship is Canada’s entry in the ‘Poseidon Adventure as allegorical Nazi-ghost-slasher movie’ sweepstakes. George Kennedy is Captain Steubing to wrist-snappin’, gear-grindin’ weirdness on this No-Love Boat sailing in the fine summer of 1980.

The scene is set as the Captain undertakes one more onerous night dining with the guests and their obnoxious, weak-bladdered children. You sense the Captain stifling urges to strangle nearly everyone he speaks with, scenes which make the first 20 minutes of Death Ship seem like a cheap cult classic. But is this stupefying undercurrent mere foreshadowing?

Regardless, the movie takes a turn for the tense after an extremely poorly presented crash between the cruise ship and the old ‘Nazi ghost-ship. ’ Not only are the spfx extremely poorly staged, but inter-cut shots reveal the Ghost-ship sailing in full daylight as it rams the cruise-ship which is sailing WELL AFTER DARK. There’s absolutely no attempt to cover for this either; we’re left to come up with our own explanations. Mine was an extremely small budget. Anyway, when two guys try to carry Kennedy’s unconscious form up the rickety steps on the side of the Nazi ghost-ship, which they naturally deem their only form of rescue for their crashed-asses, well, things get sketchy. You see, Kennedy is a really BIG GUY and these steps are quite precarious.

Nevertheless, Death Ship soon degenerates into a random slathering of details as the castaways search the eerie ship, only to be picked off one by one by a mysterious force. This mysterious force is manifested in images of the ship’s huge pistons churning away while some ghostly Nazi voices yell in the background.

And the little kid constantly has to go to the bathroom.

Of note is a long grueling scene wherein one of the bimbos becomes trapped in the shower stall as the water turns into blood. It’s good for two minutes of her writhing and screaming, her nude form continually spattered by a high spray of (presumably) hot blood.

Death Ship might have a truly soporific effect on you, the viewer. What I’m trying to say is I can’t recall how it ended. Likely it was somewhat bleak and implied a certain survival of evil. Hey, that’s what they thought of in the ‘80s, now it’s inconceivable to suggest a negative end in anything, and certainly not a bad fate for George Kennedy.

As for you, don’t think a species that came up with Nazi Germany, and all the other dogma inspired genocide projects currently going on, isn’t capable of making another Death Ship. Sadly, by today’s standards, it would be a masterpiece.