The Movie:

Norio Tsuruta isn't as well known as some of the other Japanese horror directors like Hideo Nakata but he's got a few popular titles to his credit, namely Ring 0 and Kakashi. His entry in the second season of Masters Of Horror episodes isn't the best that the series has to offer but it's a strong effort that will certainly appeal to fans of modern Japanese horror.

Daniel Gillies (of Spider-Man 2 and Captivity) plays Jack, an American lawyer working in Japan. When Jack was younger he and his brother were on a boat and when that boat capsized, Jack's attempts to save his brother from drowning didn't turn out so well. As such, Jack, now an adult, is petrified of boats and of the water. Still dealing with his brother's death years later, Jack winds up having a torrid affair with the wife of one of his biggest clients. Her husband, Eiji Saito (Ryo Ishibashi of Ju-On and Audition) invites Jack along on a cruise with he and his wife, and obviously, Jack is a little unnerved by this. Does the client know that Jack is sleeping with his wife? Will Jack be able to cope with being on a boat? There's something not quite right about this, and Jack will soon figure out the truth by learning the hard way that the past always comes back to haunt you.

Dream Cruise takes quite a bit of time to get to the good stuff. While sometimes the slow burn works, here it feels more like padding as the character development only comes in bits and pieces and as such the narrative structure of the first two thirds is, well, dull. That said, once we get on the boat and things start moving along, the film really picks up and the last third of the picture turns out to be a shockingly gory and fairly intense little morality play by way of a horror film. Some of the clichés that have come to be associated with the current crop of Japanese horror pop up - eerie, despotic looking longhaired ghosts for example - but Norio Tsuruta makes the pay off completely worthwhile even if we can make a reasonably educated guess as to where it's all going by the half way point.

Performance wise, Gillies does a decent job as the tortured philandering lawyer but the Japanese cast, who deliver their lines in English, don't fair so well. While you can't fault the Japanese cast members for not performing as well when not speaking in their native tongue, you do have to wonder why they weren't allowed to speak Japanese instead (the same problem hurt Takashi Miike's Imprint from the first season). That said, while the performances aren't going to 'wow' anyone, the visuals might. The reliance of green colored lighting to relay the ghostly manifestations are very effective and help to carry the eerie mood of the picture some, and the camerawork is slick and professional looking. The scenes on the boat have a nice, thick atmosphere to them and the gore effects and make up are appropriately nasty.

Video:

Dream Cruise is, like every episode in the series so far, presented in an anamorphic 1.78.1 widescreen transfer. Overall this is a strong transfer as color reproduction is good, and detail levels are strong. Black levels are strong which is definitely an asset as much of the film is quite dark. A little bit of edge enhancement and some aliasing is present, but thankfully it's minor and doesn't detract much from the picture.