Ghostboat
Tags: haunting

Plot synopsis:
HMS Scorpion, a British submarine that had gone missing in the Baltic Sea during the Second World War, surfaces in the path of a Russian freighter in 1981. The vessel is returned to British custody. Naval Intelligence is interested in the case because it seems that, for the first time, a ship has returned from "the Devil's Triangle of the North". The submarine opens its own hatch to let the investigating team in, where they find the vessel in a state of perfect preservation, but find no sign of the crew.
Jack Hardy is the only surviving member of the original crew, having been found floating and rescued in 1943 by members of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine; but he has no memory of the last days of the 1943 mission. He and Alan Cassidy, one of the vessel's designers, join a Royal Navy crew on a mission to retrace Scorpion's last days before it went missing. Commander Travis, a naval intelligence officer, is in charge of the mission while Captain Byrnes captains the submarine. The mission will take the submarine into Soviet waters, and a surface ship, HMS Oakland escorts the boat. Once in the Baltic, the current crew begins to take on the personalities and identities of the dead crew, and the boat takes a degree of control over itself. Contact with Oakland is soon lost.
A "Soviet submarine" is detected and through communication error the crew fires upon it and destroys it. Scorpion surfaces to search for survivors, but, impossibly, no debris is found. Hardy realises that the "Soviet submarine" was destroyed at the exact same place and time where the Scorpion sank a German U-boat in 1943, and speculates that "the past is breaking through". Cassidy, who had supervised the fitting of the Scorpion with practice torpedoes, finds that they have become live weapons. Captain Byrnes tries to abort the mission, but Cdr Travis convinces him to continue. Hardy learns that the real mission is to discover and exploit the power that preserved and delivered the Scorpion.
Soon, three aircraft are detected on radar whilst the Scorpion is surfaced. The aircraft are Second World War Luftwaffe fighters; Captain Byrnes says in stunned disbelief "This can't be real". Travis pulls out a gun and orders Byrnes below. The fighters then strafe the boat with gunfire. The captain is killed, and Travis takes command. Cassidy and Hardy find no bullet damage on the deck or tower from the strafing attack, and conclude that Travis may have shot the captain to preserve the mission.
Travis apparently becomes possessed by the former captain himself. The original submarine captain's intent had been to torpedo ships in a German fleet in the then German city of Königsberg, which is now the Soviet city of Kaliningrad. Modern Soviet officers detect the incoming hostile vessel, and begin preparations for a nuclear war. Hardy manages to get the crew off the boat before it can attack the Soviet fleet, but Travis and the submarine, essentially as one entity, continue the attack. Hardy rewires the torpedo control system, causing the torpedoes to explode in the torpedo tubes killing Travis, and causing the vessel to sink but is shot in the process. Hardy dies on his bunk clutching a picture of his wife as the water engulfs him.
Six months later, the Soviets find the sunken Scorpion; it looks like it has been decaying for forty years. Neither Hardy's nor Travis' bodies are found. The Soviets close their investigation of the incident. British intelligence intercepts the Soviet report, leading British military authorities to also close their files on the case. The British Admiral says "There was no Kaliningrad incident; it never happened. The Scorpion sank in 1943".

Review: Quite a lot of CGI in this piece of ITV telly, but not to the extent that it takes away from the acting or the story.
In this age where people want more and more 'instant classics', this will probably not impress some people who will see it as a predictable story with an equally predictable ending.
David Jason can easily take-on a role such as this and make is watchable.
It lends itself to the subtle chills that the stories of M.R. James deliver, and although it may not be groundbreaking it is certainly a change from the usual stock of 'Drama' that ITV dish up (i.e. detective shows, or pseudo-reality TV.) All-in-all, it was easy viewing and has a satisfying ending.
A derivative but nonetheless intriguing set up; a ship (in this case a submarine) is found many years after it sank, with no sign of the crew, or what happened to them.
Despite that the set up hooked me, I love these kind of vaguely supernatural / time travel plot lines, however familiar they are.To be honest I was disappointed by what was delivered.
David Jason is a fine actor but his character in this came over as terse, sullen and not especially interesting.
As he is the lead, and therefore your focal point throughout the story, this was a big failing.
He just wasn't interesting or unusual enough, you learned almost nothing about his character despite him being on screen for most of the 180 minutes.The plot itself seemed to peter out rather than deliver a climax, for a thriller (or at least a war time drama) I felt there was too little tension.
The actual operation of the submarine and the technical side all felt very authentic but this did not compensate for the lack of plot, or genuinely interesting characters.
The officers were all a little stiff, the crew were similarly generic, all of them have been seen many times before.Towards the end I felt the plot simply ran out of ideas and some of what happened bordered on silly.
I never felt this story got going, I appreciate it was television but there was far too much chatter.
It was slow in places where it needed pace, or another twist and this was, for me at least, the other major failing; ultimately the story lacked imagination.
There was no moment when I thought 'now that is interesting, I never saw that coming'.Despite these misgivings I thought it was not bad for a TV two parter.
I don't tend to watch a lot of television (preferring to stick to DVDs) so something has really got to interest me to get me to firstly remember the programme's on and secondly to actually watch.The thing that immediately attracted me to the programme was, of course, fabulous actor David Jason.
And yet again he excels himself in this wonderful thriller.The story is based on a book also called 'Ghostboat' and is about a submarine called the Scorpion that surfaces in 1981-but which hasn't been seen since the second world war where it was presumed to have sunk.
When it sank only one survivor was found, Jack Hardy (David Jason) who can't remember anything due to amnesia) When the sub resurfaces, Hardy is invited to go on a journey on the sub, with another crew and retrace the path the Scorpion took to find out what happened to it.When they first go onto the sub to check out the damage and pull out the bodies of the dead, they find something astonishing.
There are no bodies, everything is as the crew left it 40 years ago, nothing has changed.And so the journey begins.
Hardy can hear voices, things are happening in the same way they did 40 years ago-and the crew are beginning to change.
As Hardy says 'The past is breaking through' The CGI effects in the film are very, very good, although not perfect, the storyline is gripping, the acting and cast are stellar.The perfect thing for the family to gather in front of the telly to watch-10/10!.
Very average, and predictable.Some good moments though, but was let down by cheap and nasty CGI FX.This was, however a decent TV short drama which can was good to watch once.
Doesn't quite have the longevity to persuade me to purchase the DVD to build my collection.This certainly won't be one of David Jason's more memorable roles as it doesn't have the charm and complexity of shows such as Open All Hours and Only Fools and Horses.As usual with ITV Dramas, the constant interruption of commercial breaks added to my disappointment of this programme.
I just finished watching this ITV production, and all I can say is that I liked what I saw, but will note that there was room for much improvement.How so?
Well, for one, the main vessel around which the movie focuses was a World War 2 British diesel submarine.
Big deal, you say, ah, but one of the major story points is that the sub seems to operate like a modern nuclear sub, or one of the modern Nordic or Germanic subs which are quieter than either the US, UK or Soviet subs.
Simply put WW2 subs stayed on the surface, and only went underwater when needed, but you'd never know that by watching this movie.The other thing is that there's a little bit of creep factor in this film, but it's not accentuated enough.
We understand what's happening to the crew, but the made for TV production values seem to limit both SFX and other production values to really ram home the message to the audience.I imagine the biggest mis step taken in this film is that even though the boat as a "life of its own" so to speak, a late 20th century crew, a crew that is not trained in diesel sub operations some how manages to bring this vessel out into open ocean, and operate her like a modern nuclear powered SSN.Huh.You know, if you can get by that, and the cinematography which is a little uninspired, then you can probably enjoy watching this film, but the story of a haunted ship and her affect on the crew takes precedence over operational details and plot points.It's not a great film, but it is a mild diversion for a couple of hours.
Good entertainment and different role for David Jason.
A story like this will not appeal to everyone but I thought it was very original and well put together overall.
A good change from the usual period dramas that come from British productions.
Some story points are a bit too subtle and easy to miss so might need a second viewing to fully appreciate how it all fits together.
David Jason is brilliant.
Sadly a good actor cannot salvage an obvious story line (which owes a lot to other works, such as the similarly named Ghostship) which meant it all became a little predictable, and towards the end just plain silly.Characters behave inconsistently and illogically as the story lurches towards the less than surprising end.The special effects themselves were also erratic - obviously a lot of money was spent on the set of the sub, but the cgi shots ranged from the okay to dreadful.Okay if you are bored, but not the great work I was expecting..
David Jason was magnificent in this movie.
This was a very watchable movie , being in two parts , I made a point of watching the second part ( what further proof do you need , none for me - my wife watched all of it as well!) .
I think that anything that was 'incorrect' (as pointed out by the previous poster from Blacpool) during the first episode will be cleared up tonight and anything that isn't shouldn't really draw it away from being a brilliant programme.
Sir David Jason's acting is, as always, absolutely amazing and the other cast members also do this TV programme much justice.
Yet another brilliant bit of acting by Sir David Jason.
As a lover of all this spooky and a fan of Jason I found myself glued to the screen.Ghostboat kept me riveted, the plot was good and the acting too.
Commander Travis becoming "possessed" by the previous captain was good.However, i found the ending somewhat disappointing, a great build-up to an anti-climax.All told a great program, which should most definitely be shown again in a few years time..
As the character Cassidy enters he hears a comment about increasing the battery charging rate and advises against it as this will cause chlorine gas to be generated and kill the crew by poisoning.
Every submariner knows that chlorine gas will only be generated if salt water gets into the battery and reacts with the battery acid.
This was always the fear of submariners when the boat was damaged and sea water was coming in.
The full two-hour production was broadcast on PBS, Watertown, N.Y. on 2007 March 25 without commercials.Intriguing plot.
What was not made clearly enough in the movie is that the submarine went through a time-warp...
Time-warp explains the attack by WW II vintage Me 109 aircraft mid-way through the movie and the sudden re-emergence of the sub back to 1981 for the final attack on the, by then, Soviet naval base.
It also explains why the sub could sink enemy (German) vessels, including another submarine, without triggering WW III.I'm not sure about British subs but US subs certainly had radar later in WW II.
Unfortunately, the movie sub lacked a radar antennae.
(The last German sub to be sunk in WW II was by HMCS New Glascow, a frigate, which was unaware of the sub and accidentally rammed it whilst the latter was partly submerged and trying to sneak to its home port.)Incongruities:As pointed out by others, chlorine gas is produced by sea water entering batteries, not by shorting them out.
Shorting out the batteries would have caused failure of the electric propulsion and the sub could not have run under water.
Okay, maybe only some of the batteries were shorted out.WW II torpedoes had safety devices to prevent them becoming armed or the torpedo engine starting whilst they were still in the torpedo tube.How was it that the captain and the professor could continue inside the sub without gas masks after the crew had been forced to abandon it because of chlorine gas?Worse, at one point, after all the crew except the captain has abandoned the sub, the professor re-enters the submarine via the conning tower, whilst the sub is submerging, in order to fire the scuttling charges (explosive charges intended to deliberately sink the submarine in order to avoid capture by the enemy).
All he had to do to sink the sub was to leave the conning tower hatch open as the submarine submerged.With a little thought and expert advice the producers could have avoided or glossed over these incongruities.
Ghostboat was a nice idea, partly saved only by the always watchable icon that is David Jason.However, this was a tired, plodding effort that sadly went nowhere, and sadly sank into the murky depths of drama lite.The CGI was mostly deplorable,I assume as most of the budget was spent on the actual set which was on the whole quite good.However, what spoilt this for me, and I would guess anyone with any connection with submarines (I have no connection but am an avid Sub sim player) or anyone who has watched Das Boot, was the total lack of realism.Warning- here there be spoilers!
This could have been a taut one hour ghost story.
an excellent 2 parter the 1981S crew slow change into the 1943 crew was brilliant however the idea that the commander could control what was going on was stupid because he was the most possessed it also makes you think how close we did come to world war 3 during the cold war if stuff like that is classified.
however several questions were left unanswered such as if the 'ghost' of scorpion was made real and could be seen why weren't the bodies of the crew also if it was 1981 outside and 1943 inside how come there were the 3 planes which attacked.
although i was not very impressed with the graphics apparently they cost £1000 a second over all i think it was a good supernatural thriller.
With David Jason as the lead and also one of the producers, I expected a lot more than I got when watching this.
The first half was pretty good and promised an intriguing finale, but the second part descended into a confused and unconvincing mess where the crew weren't the only ones to wonder what was going on.
There were glaring anomalies in the story line and the original theory of how the sub had reappeared after being missing for forty-odd years was completely ignored at the end (apart from a brief display of mysterious lightning)..
A submarine lost in WW2 re-appears in 1981 and David Jason's character Hardy (The only survivor of it's last voyage) is asked to go back with a crew and retrace the steps of the Submarines's last journey (why?
and so it got a little confusing.I wouldn't attack the plot too much because after all it is called 'Ghostboat' and so you expect it to be a little far fetched/supernatural so that's fine BUT...
at the end when the Navy and the Russian Navy (or whatever they're called in Russia) closed the case on the strange goings on, there was no mention of and never any mention of, all the other boats they blew up along the way...and as for the hostile German aircrafts...well I can only assume that they were imagined?
Now I know there were some grey areas as to which was going on in the past and which was in the present but Hardy did state that it was only 1943 inside of the sub and still very much 1981 outside...
hence the reason why the Russians of 1981 were getting a little anxious at the sight of the sub on its radar...
But...if I did get too confused by all the submarine jargon...and completely missed something due to this fact...and anyone knows any different...please tell me?
David Jason, a 'family favourite' plays a character in the exact same style as he does in A Touch Of Frost, in this ridiculous and predictable thriller.In this 2-parter, David Jason plays the character of a old WWII seaman who is called in by the Navy when his submarine re-emerges after disappearing in the war.
Only David Jason's 'Jack Hardy' survives from the original crew but he suffers from memory loss, and has to piece together his movements from a series of flashbacks when taken back inside the ship.The story then becomes laughable when the Navy decide, for some reason, to re-enact the last voyage of the Submarine by piecing together the movements from the Captain's Log. After accidentally sinking a Russian Submarine they come under attack from German WWII aircraft and Jack Hardy realises that someone is filling in the incomplete Captain's Log...Good for a one-off if you don't want to do much thinking but easily forgotten..
Not too bad, but a bit predictable.
This isn't actually a bad attempt at a naval ghost story.
It was much better than I expected, although it did look like degenerating into the expected "haunted house" style story, it just about kept its head above water until the end where the rather predictable "Captain talks to ghost operators appeared".
The "posession" of crew members was well executed and was introduced well with little slips of the tongue like referring to the enemies as "gerries" instead of Russkies.
Some parts were just downright confusing, such as the Bf109s overflying the boat, with little explanation of whether they were just imagined or whether the crew were seeing Russian ASW aircraft as German fighters.
If this is the case though then the final engagement at Kaliningrad is a huge continuity error, with the captain's eye view of the shipyard showing Russian "typhoon" class SSBNs, rather than German U boats.The CGI was awful.
While it wasn't bad enough to ruin the movie, it REALLY irritated me.
With just a bit more effort it could have looked sharper and cleaner than it actually was.Despite the historical inaccuracies it proved to be enjoyable enough, but not enough to make me buy the DVD.
Nice try Mr Jason, not bad..
I'm not sure if this story was true because the war on at the time ended not long after, and there was mention of bodies never recovered in the wreck of the boat, but personally, who cares.
This is a very interesting and near creepy story of one man's survival on a boat, and then somehow, the same events happen again on what seems to be the same boat.
Sir David Jason as Jack Hardy is the man who survived a terrible storm on a large boat/ submarine.
Unfortunately, the events that previously happened to him happen again, and the members of the new boat he is on seem to "sink" into the spell of past history.
Jack is now trying everyone he can to stop the events that happened to him and the boat 40 years ago.
I watched GhostBoat with my mum, and I do like this sort of thing and it did intrigue med with a submarine appearing out of nowhere from 40 years missing.
It also had David Jason which I thought was a good choice.Travis was very good as the mutinous first mate, probably taken from Pirates of the Caribbean 1, or that could be just a wild guess.
I do like a good madman especially when there is no escape, the Shining anyone?
It did get a bit weird towards the end when the ghosts were operating Travis and all the ships compartments.
I do recommend if you like a good horror story!