Producer Val Lewton's horror films for RKO, made on the cheap, miraculously hold up as some of the best horror films ever made, replete with eldritch shadows, mysterious goings-on, and a shaky, insubstantial line between the natural and the supernatural. When one thinks of 1940s horror, Universal Studios springs to mind first, but a quick glance at the output of the two studios settles any debate over who the kings of horror were: would you take Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Body Snatcher, or The Ghost of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, and House of Dracula? All of the films have their charms (well, most of them do), but when it came to producing chills, Lewton's RKO output wins hands-down.

Despite the title, the horrors of The Ghost Ship are all man-made. One of those prophetic blind men that inhabit horror films tells young officer Tom Merriam (Russell Wade) that his newly assigned ship, the Altair, is "a bad ship." Merriam, with the blind enthusiasm of a new graduate, ignores him, but the signs start to pile up almost as soon as he arrives on board. He discovers that the last third officer died in his bunk; a sailor turns up dead just before they depart; and a sinister-looking mute sailor (Skelton Knaggs), in a whispered voicover, intones "the man is dead. With his death, the waters of the sea are open to us. But there will be other deaths, and the agony of dying, before we come to land again." He's not kidding: Captain Stone (Richard Dix) seems a bit eccentric at first, but his grip on reality slips more and more each day. Soon enough, Merriam is putting his own life at risk to bring a murder charge against his captain. The charges are dismissed, and when Merriam inadvertently ends up stuck on the ship, Stone tells him, "There are captains who would hold this against you." That's putting it mildly. As the rest of the crew turns against him for opposing their beloved captain, Merriam has to avoid getting killed by Captain Stone.

Dix, decades after his tenure as an unlikely matinee idol, plays his role with a serenity that belies the madness that's creeping up on him. His favorite topic of discourse is authority: what it means, how to achieve it, what powers and responsibilities it brings its possessor. At first he seems reasonable, and we nod along with Merriman as he sits and listens to Captain Stone's lectures. But there's a point, even before he turns into a murderer, that he crosses the line into obsession. His talks about authority come to resemble, in tone at least, Sterling Hayden's calm and sincere pontifications about precious bodily fluids in Dr. Strangelove—only this film's somber tone keep the laughter at bay.

Aside from a too-abrupt ending, this is among RKO's best horror films. The pacing is perfect; director Mark Robson doesn't waste a minute of the film's brief 69 minute running time. Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, who deserved an Oscar for Cat People and would go on to photograph some of the finest noirs ever made, including Out of the Past, keeps that RKO atmosphere slinking across the ship's deck like a fog. Finally, there's Richard Dix, an actor I'd managed to miss until I saw and disliked him in Ace of Aces, won me over by creating one of the best bad guys of the 1940s.

This film exists because RKO ordered Lewton to make use of a ship set they built for their largely unsuccessful 1938 film Pacific Liner. After being sued for plagiarism, RKO withdrew it from circulation for over 50 years.

—June 13, 2006