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Torture Ship (1939) - Victor Halperin

Torture Ship is torture to watch... yes I just said that. Yes, I am THAT guy. I barely got through this movie and it is hard to interpret and even harder to enjoy. The movie starts off with little explanation and leaves you with tons of questions and yawns. The acting is laughable and the storyline is ludicrous. I was on such a hot streak too: The Ape, then Sweeney Todd but now this failure of a film.

This movie is a B-Movie through and through. It was obvious from the first five minutes of the film that it was going to be cheap and boring. From what I could piece together the plot is about a group of prisoners who are stuck on a ship with a doctor running experiments on them. What experiments? Who knows. How did they all get there? I don't know. Why did they even spend time making this movie? I don't know.

The movie is short in the way of scares and very heavy in the way of "comedy". At least what they try to pass off as comedy. The whole thing is all unoriginal and trite. There is only one scene in the entire film that I enjoyed and it involves the character Harry "The Carver" Bogard in which he has been asked to give a shave to Dirk, the spineless comedic relief character. The whole scene is pretty genuine. It is the only bit of acting in the whole movie. I am going to caution you here: Do not watch this movie unless you are ready for bed as it will make you fall asleep faster than Queen of the Damned.

"Doctor, is it true that through your experiments in endocrine glands you can cure crime?"


  • Film looks like it was filmed on Videocassette. However it is 35mm.
  • Also known as To karavi tou martyriou in Greece.
  • The film was released on DVD with the Tales of Terror 50 Movie Pack Collection.
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