This is a movie begging to be recut. I actually think that if someone took the time to do that, they could get a decent movie out of it. For the most part, what ruins this movie is it's like someone filmed a bunch of scenes then slapped them together in a hurry with what they thought was an edgy jump from past to present and back again, when all they actually did was to completely lose the audience as there is no cohesion between the 2 timelines and the I was left asking "how did that happen?" or why'd he/she do that?" throughout the movie until the end, when there is the slightest of answers for the viewer, but I suspect most, unless actually in a theatre, had quit the movie half way through as I was tempted. This movie screams to be recut into a straight timeline with maybe a little flashing back or forward as that technique is overuse in general and in this film to the extreme. Acting was good, but dialogue between the couple in the present was very lacking. Cinematography was good except it looks like the camera was searching for something to shoot at times. If I had the time and equipment I think this could be recut into a decent movie.

The Haunting Of The Queen Mary is a bizarrely grandiose, intensely eccentric, grand old horror spectacle that unfolds in two timelines about a hundred years apart and while I have to say that it's not much of a coherent beast in terms of storyline, it's one of the most visually stylish, atmospherically engaging films I've seen this year. In 1938 the Queen Mary steamship makes a special, no expenses spared Halloween voyage across the Atlantic and one ill fated family of carny stowaways has an increasingly dangerous encounter with... something supernatural. In present day a young woman (Alice Eve) tours the now dormant ship and tries to convince the slightly shady duty captain to let her include footage of it in her upcoming podcast but it soon becomes clear that the supernatural element might be still hanging around. Well, not that clear but that's the best I can surmise it. I'll be totally honest with you: the writer and editor of this thing may have had a few too many while working on this because the plot just... careens around wildly making not much sense, the transitions from time period are loose and undefined and the core elements of the story are buried in pacing pandemonium. Having said that, the director and cinematographer seem to have had just the right amount because this is one of the most beautiful looking horror pictures I've seen in some time, an opulently lit, complexly structured palette full of striking costume choices, clanking steampunk viscera below deck and some of the most flat-out gruesome murder scenes committed to celluloid involving an axe swung just about as furiously as possible into people's faces. The 1938 sequences are breathtaking in period detail, dialogue and song/dance numbers as the ship hosts celebrities like Fred Astaire himself, among others. This is a big, loud, immersive and hectic experience that's reminiscent of the early 2000's Dark Castle horror films like Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship, Gothika and House On Haunted Hill. These type of films are absolutely dripping in the style, production design and visual artistic aspects even if story and logic don't quite fall into step. That's a great way to describe this one, a big ol' ghost story you just sort of surrender to like a runaway theme park ride, it's so much fun.

If somebody asked me what this movie was about, I could not tell them. I did not understand anything. I did not understand the story, I did not understand the going back-and-forth, I did not understand why the new captain collapsed when they broke down the wall, I did not understand why the little boy was out on the ledge, I did not understand why the woman stuck a pen through her hand and they just never followed up about it, I didn't understand the purpose of Fred Astaire and the girl tap dancing, I did not understand why the guy had half of his face missing, I did not understand why they were staying overnight, I did not understand the old man in the bathtub that he shot, I didn't understand all the flashing of the lights on the camera... one big mess of scenes with no plot or objective. Oh, and the tarot cards? I could go on and on, but I still would not understand it.