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Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The Ghost Galleon & How this Bleak Adventure is Perfect for a Table Top

7 of 7 viewers "Liked" "Horror of the Zombies"/"The Ghost Galleon"/"The Blind Dead 3" (1974, Spain)
Here's what the citizens of the Overlook Theatre had to say:

Lord Battle - "Campy and absurd don't begin to describe this film, so get some beer and friends and enjoy but if you still have doubts about viewing "The Ghost Galleon" just know this film features a satanic orgy on a ghostship in another dimension." - 4 1/2 Stars

Math Mage - "A Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure plus some of the most ridiculous dubbing ever." - 3 Stars

Huntress - "The Room's nonsense meets Scooby Doo's investigative curiosity in this very strange venture." - 3 1/2 Stars

The Great Hornito - "This felt like this was a really fun Italian, live action, crazy over the top Scooby Doo ghost story. Any one who loves pirates, bad dubs, sexy girls in bikinis and ghost ship exorcisms, should definitely check this out." - 4 Stars

Bug - "This movie was definitely not what I expected, but it was very entertaining." - 3 Stars

Unicorn Slayer - "Classic Italian style film making, the dubs, acting, and overall idea are painfully laughable. Amusing as a groan-inducing film, not for much else." - 2 1/2 Stars

Book Wyrm - "Interesting to say the least. No cohesive story but still sort of entertaining. Fun to laugh at!" - 2 Stars



The Overlook Theatre Final Review*
"The Ghost Galleon" is the coolest of the films many titles so that's what I'll be calling it. There isn't much to say that fans of Italian horror won't already be expecting, the dub is amazing/awful depending on how you look at it, the story is dream like and absurd, and the characters are bad Hollywood impersonators while the undead are unique and brutal. 

The story is the real oddball in this one as motivations and actions seem totally lost in translation. This normally would be a bad thing but "The Ghost Galleon" just starts to feel dream-like, just not in the typical film style, it feels more like a group nightmare. My favorite scene is also one the best examples of this group nightmare, as a model held captive in a very dungeonesk basement area of a building tries to escape. She fails miserably but the scene is defiantly strange and totally awesome.  

In the header I stated that this movie would be perfect for a table top, and by "table top" I mean table top RPG's in the style of D&D. Although this movie would make an adventure far too brutal for any version of D&D and would need to be played in my favorite system "Lamentations of the Flame Princess". I can imagine a module now... It would read "The Ghost Galleon" and when you open it up you would see the same image the film opens with:


LotFP also is the perfect system because it focuses on the fact adventurers are greedy and go to extreme lengths for treasure. The people that make up the party in the film may not be adventures in the classic D&D sense but they would work perfectly for a modern game and everything in this film happens because of a cheap ploy to make money. In fact once they board the ship the way the film flows starts to feel like a group of friends in a dungeon, as players tend to be very weary until something happens. Even the speculation as to where they are and what's going on sounds like something a sleep deprived group of friends came up with. But what really makes this a LotFP adventure over any other system is the complete lack of hope and the sense of immanent doom both the characters in the film and players of the module would undoubtedly be feeling.

I could go on and on about how perfectly this film would work, so instead of ruining the whole movie let me just say this to the creator of LotFP... Raggi you gotta make this an adventure!!! 
- Lord Battle

If you'd like to learn more about the Flame Princess I have his blog on my list of awesome blogs and here is a link to his games site.

*Based on the star ratings turned in by character reviewers, others viewed and got to "Dislike" or "Like" but that does not effect the rating. 

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