Ghost Ship opens with a scene so gruesome it elicits one of two reactions -- either you find it morbidly funny or you almost lose your lunch. It feels like a kind of qualifying check, similar to one of those height-measuring signs in the line of a theme-park attraction that says, "You must be this tall to enter this ride." The opening of Ghost Ship seems to be testing the viewer's stomach, as if to warn you about upcoming Grand Guignol delights.

Yet, Ghost Ship doesn't deliver any more goods quite as sickening as its kick-off. What follows is a rather mundane horror movie, which is somewhat expected given its pedigree -- it's made by the people who brought us the poorly received House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts. To my surprise, however, Ghost Ship isn't all that bad. It's just isn't all that scary, either.

I didn't get the impression the movie was trying very hard to be frightening. It comes across less like a horror flick and more like an intriguing supernatural adventure. However, "intriguing" isn't what the doctor ordered. The film tries to freak out its audience by using a more-impressive-than-scary set (big ship with a nice-looking rusty-interior production design) and some bad computer effects and props. Only two ghosts get significant screen time, and neither of them induce fear -- they are Katie (Emily Browning), the friendly ghost, and Francesca (Francesca Rettondini), an Italian beauty who will strip for lusty men.

Most disarmingly, Ghost Ship chucks the persona of being gleefully malevolent in favor of being... moralistic? The story acts like a finger-wagging warning to those too weak to resist the most basic temptations: greed, lust, and drink. The movie's would-be victims -- a five-man, one-woman salvage crew --are mostly unsympathetic and shallow. The majority of them are made out to be sinners unwittingly asking for punishment. These elements actually make the story interesting, but they're never fully developed. Instead, about two-thirds of the way through, Ghost Ship remembers it's supposed to be a cheesy horror movie, but by then it's a little too late. The death scenes that have previously occurred already squandered their creative potential and are actually, well, boring. At this point, the best the movie offers involves  an out-of-place music video-style flashback of murder and mayhem, and a climax showing a ghost joking about making management happy.

Still, something must be said for Julianna Margulies, the only player in the movie assigned a character worth rooting for. Her concern for Katie, the friendly ghost, is the salvage crew's only display of selflessness -- it gives the audience something to connect to. Margulies projects courage and intelligence; hardly any screams escape her lips. Once she determines what's going on, she defies the source of danger. After her heroics in the finale, I actually found myself with a warm feeling in my heart -- a disgrace for a movie of this genre. Ghost Ship ought to have its horror license revoked.

(Review also posted on www.windowtothemovies.com)

Released by Warner Bros. and rated "R" for strong violence/gore, language and sexuality.