10 Crazy Party Massacre Scenes In Horror Movies
6. Ghost Ship - 1960s Party Boat
2002 B-horror movie Ghost Ship was fairly popular when it was first released. Although reception towards the movie was lukewarm at best, this film is best remembered as a stepping stone for future stars such as Gabriel Byrne and Karl Urban. However, Ghost Ship also features one of the best party massacre scenes in horror during the film’s first 5 minutes.
Ghost Ship opens up on a luxury liner in the 1960s, where smiling party guests dance and drink to the sounds of a beautiful lounge singer; the film’s opening credits rolling in the foreground. This relaxed atmosphere continues for a while before a faceless figure puts into motion a deadly plan. A flip of a switch, a whirling of mechanisms and a spool of thick metal wire is pulled taught. The spool snaps and the wire flies across the dancefloor at speed, cutting through everybody present so quickly they can’t tell what’s happened. It isn’t long before the bodies of the guests slump to the floor in grisly pieces, leaving only a young girl behind because she was too short to be killed by the wire.
Whilst the movie is largely forgettable, the opening massacre sequence is unforgettable because of its visual style, great special effects and shocking amount of death for the first scene of a horror movie. It’s just a shame that rest of the movie couldn’t match the bar set by this opening number.