spooky, trashy anomaly set adrift 
in an ocean of cinematic slasher films during the early '80s, Death Ship is the kind of movie people stumble upon late at night on TV and spend years trying to track down again. You've got all the ingredients here for a pulpy good time: a semi-celebrity cast; a supernatural high concept; a reasonable body count; and of course, an evil Nazi-spawned killer ship roaming the seas. How can you possibly resist?
However, it earned a 
small but consistent cult following over the years thanks to its handful of macabre highlights, most notably the scene in which Nick's girlfriend (Burgoyne) gets a bloody surprise in the shower, a scene later pilfered for the ridiculous but lovable made-for-TV favorite, This House Possessed. The climax is pretty lively, too, including a truly creepy sequence involving a giant net filled with human remains. Director Alvin Rakoff was mostly known for his TV work and doesn't do much more than point the camera and shoot, but the whole film has an eerie atmosphere (heck, it's got a ship blaring Nazi interrogation commands on the loudspeakers!) and a strange, unsettling electronic score by Ivor Slaney, who had recently scored Norman J. Warren's Prey and Terror. And wouldja believe the script is based on a story co-written by Jack Hill (Spider Baby) and David P. Lewis (Klute)? 
release), those three-plus minutes of VHS-sourced deleted scenes, 
the American trailer, and bonus previews for titles like Silent Scream, Humongous, The Hearse, Don't Answer the Phone, and Mortuary. As for the film itself, it looks pretty darn good; the transfer on the DVD edition (the first version released by a couple of months) is given plenty of breathing room (it's a dual-layered disc with the feature taking up over an entire layer); you'll see some softness and speckles during the opening credits as usual (those optical always looked a little iffy), both otherwise it's smooth sailing. (And yes, that shower scene is nice and clear, so no worries there.) As usual, the cover art retains the terrific original poster art (reused again years later for Warner's Ghost Ship). The Blu-ray version is taken from the same HD source, obviously, and features the expected bump in clarity with details like clothing patterns and facial hair registering more clearly. It's also worth noting that the color timing of this film has always been a little wonky; 35mm prints had a gray, bleak appearance (which you can tell from the similar trailers circulated on comps over the years), and while the UK disc appears to have been digitally swerved to color correct it to something closer to a "normal" palette (pumped up yellows and reds, for example) along with some sharpening in the process and extremely harsh whites, the Blu-ray in particular has a more restrained, cold appearance. Individual tastes will vary, of course. 
"What the Ship Is Saying" routine, the "Blood Star" short 
story script, a stills and poster gallery (4m25s), and two trailers for this film as well as Blind Date, The Unseen, City on Fire, Seizure, House on Sorority Row, and Opera. Initial copies available through Diabolik and Ronin Flix feature a slipcover while supplies last, featuring the new cover art design. NUCLEUS FILMS (2020 Blu-ray)
SCORPION RELEASING (2018 Blu-ray)
SCORPION RELEASING (2012 Blu-ray)
NUCLEUS FILMS (2007 DVD)
