DVD Nightmare – Painajainen merellä

This might easily be one of the most nihilistic flicks i've ever seen. Despite IMDb currently labelling it as 'horror thriller', it seems it was supposed to be more like a mixture of slasher/thriller, drama/romance and a bit of comedy. However, it fails at each: It's thriller without suspense, a slasher without on-screen killings, a drama/romance without any tangible emotions, a comedy without one laugh.

Bland story made of generic thriller tropes, while the writers constantly deny the number one rule in screen writing – "SHOW, DON'T TELL!" – in a way that basically all information (characterizations, their relationships, motivations, background story) are merely given in form of dialogue. If you can't SHOW a story, but only TELL it via dialogue, you should rather release it as a book or radio play, instead of shooting an audio-visually dull movie like that.

Oh yes, since the movie takes place on a luxury liner, i was at least expecting a rather fancy set – but no, most of it are just boring medium shots of talking characters…

Bottom line: The only positive things about this movie are its shorter-than-usual runtime and the actors still trying to make a professional job, while anything else appears to be carried out on amateur level.

By the way, note the "mirror scare"! You will probably not get a more nihilistic variation of this horror trope anywhere – which is very exemplary for the entire movie.