Landing at just over an hour, Torture Ship, a short little programmer from fledgling studio PRC would tread between the lines of mystery, horror and science-fiction and be none the better for it. The film was not awful by any means but neither was it all that good, albeit it was interesting enough to hold one’s interest for the duration of its running time.

The plot would consist of a doctor whose experiments were frowned upon who decides to continue them aboard a ship where hopefully on the high seas, he might continue them until he finds a measure of success. Being a doctor, he also needs patients and enlists a number of criminals unaware of his true purpose in bringing them aboard. Things go both right and wrong until the end of the movie where the doctor and his experiments never get the recognition they deserve, the patients either revolting or dying in the process.

Based on a story by Jack London, there are those who love this picture, some who think it runs on the low end of the cinematic scale and those who simply believe it to exist somewhere in between good and bad, mediocrity at its best. For those that dare give this movie a go, it is the latter they will most likely agree with for it is not all that terrible and it does have a little meat on the bones but it is sparse and could have been more than it was. Coming from Poverty Row meant having a budget that was little more than nothing and it definitely shows despite employing some decent character actors in Lyle Talbot, Irving Pichel, Sheila Bromley, Julie Bishop and Russell Hopton. Director Victor Halperin would do what he could to get the most out of them but there was little there in the first place, thus the somewhat slightly tepid affair.

Halperin himself would do nothing to aid the picture, the camerawork staid and unexciting – much like the picture the man would be directing. While one does wonder just where the events are headed and how it is the man doctor would be stopped, the film could have used several things to make it far more interesting such as a better script, a little more action to liven things up and comedic relief that was actually humourous instead of what was served up, just to name a few. Again, this was not a bad movie but Torture Ship, especially given the name, promises more than it delivers.

2 out of 5