Right from the start, Gary Shore and Rebecca Harris had a clear plan, and that’s to give us a truly nerve-racking experience while watching their newly released film. Haunting of the Queen Mary (2023) is set on a retired British ocean liner that has become one of the most haunted places in the world— the Queen Mary ship. It sailed from 1936 to 1967 and was then anchored in Long Beach, California, where it remains permanently. This ship undeniably holds great significance in history and has always been controversial for paranormal activities, which looks perfectly suited for the big screen.
Haunting of the Queen Mary is well-executed and visually splendid, especially in the 1938 scenes, and it manages to be nostalgic and modern at the same time as it involves the past and present of what happened to the ship. Isaac Bauman is also one of the key figures behind the narrative’s success. How he composes the frames, sets up the angles, and directs goes a long way. The portrayal of Queen Mary’s paranormal stories has achieved remarkable authenticity. Spoilers ahead.
Haunting of the Queen Mary (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis :
It all starts with scenes from 1938 when the retired British magnificent ocean liner, the RMS Queen Mary, is in the middle of its voyage through the North Atlantic Ocean. While a few passengers are still having the time of their lives, some groups of workers on the ship are talking about an unusual event taking place nearby. It becomes evident that it is because there is a masked man on the ship who has been violently killing multiple passengers. And because of that, he’s trying to find a way to escape.
Even after getting caught and locked up at first, he manages to escape again with his young daughter’s help. Then everything shifts to the present time, where a woman named Anne Caulder is driving to Long Beach, California, with her son Lukas. Anne and Patrick (Luka’s father), who have already separated, are currently working on a project to preserve and restore Queen Mary’s reputation.
Patrick’s idea is to start and write a book about it, yet Luka’s suggestion that it should have a more interactive approach would be more effective than just a simple book. That’s when Anne finally meets the captain of the Queen Mary ship and proposes their concept of creating a 3D virtual tour experience of the entire cruise ship using software. While Anne is busy presenting the concept to the captain, Lukas, together with his father, joins one of the ship’s ghost tours.
These tours guide visitors to different parts of the ship and provide information about paranormal hauntings that happened there. But it becomes strange when Lukas separates from the rest because his mobile phone distracts him.
He just continues to walk and explore on his own while holding his favorite camera. Lukas feels that he isn’t alone at that time when he sees a young girl on the ship the same age as him. When Lukas is walking near an old swimming pool deep inside the ship, he is suddenly attacked by the ghost of the masked man. However, the young girl he initially saw saves him and pulls him into the swimming pool. Lukas luckily gets saved and reunites with his parents then goes home afterward. However, there is still something different and strange going on around him. The story shifts from Lukas’ family search party and returns to an old historical journey on the Queen Mary ship. It begins with a family similar to Lukas’s: David, his wife Gwen, and their young daughter Jackie.
David leads his family, and they pretend they are someone else so they can get onto the cruise ship since they don’t have invitations. David always wears a half-face mask to hide his injury from the war. He knows that a couple has canceled their plans to attend Queen Mary’s grand dinner, and he is sure that he can get into it by taking their identities and telling them that Jackie is their niece.
David and Gwen are happy to get a seat in the fancy dining hall on the Queen Mary. Their exact identities or where they come from are not revealed anywhere in the film. But each of their characters is given some details, like how Gwen always loved card reading or their daughter dreaming of being a dancer or an actress. These personal interests make more sense when Jackie walks up to a group of film directors and actors in the dining hall and showcases her dancing skills to them.
The director turns out to be coincidentally a self-centered person who immediately rejects Jackie without giving her a chance. David doesn’t like the way the director approached Jackie. Soon, he takes the opportunity to have a word with him. But things seem not to be in their favor. The original couple whom David and Gwen impersonated also unexpectedly come to the dinner, and this alerts the authorities about what’s happening.
They question David and even doubt if he really served in the war before. Because of the situation and the way David was portrayed as a callous killer from the start of the movie, there always seems to be something strange and creepy about him. But actually, there’s really nothing strange about him at all, except for wearing a half-face mask to cover his injury. He’s just a concerned and loving father attempting to talk to the film director to ensure that his daughter would get even just one chance to showcase her skills, and there is no harm in this either.
When David and his family are disrespected and kicked out of the dinner, he goes alone for a walk through the lower hallways of the ship. He reaches the swimming pool and decides to spend some time alone there. Things get turned upside down when he is possessed by a ghost and is controlled by it. He turns murderous, going on a violent rampage, attacking and killing anyone in his way. David walks back to his room first, holding a heavy metal axe that he uses to murder his wife, Gwen. Several passengers from the nearby rooms tried to stop him, but David attacked and killed them. Their bodies ended up in a terrible pile.
When the authorities discover Gwen’s dead body, they manage to catch David and put him in a straitjacket inside one of the cabins. Still, he manages to escape because when his daughter Jackie finds him, she doesn’t hesitate to help her father. But since Jackie is too young to realize that the ghost still controls her father, David kills Jackie and tries to escape the ship.
Haunting of the Queen Mary (2023) Movie Ending, Explained:
Who is the spirit that enters David’s body, and what is their intention?
When the murders occur on the ship in 1938, there is also an emergency in the ship’s engine room. The engines and machines suddenly stopped working, causing panic among the passengers because the ship was about to tip over and sink. The way the old captain of the ship stops the crisis is related to the spirit that enters David. It turns out that the captain practiced “foundation sacrifice” during the ship’s construction.
It indicates that human life is taken to guarantee the strength and stability of buildings and constructions. When they were building the Queen Mary ship, the company’s future was still uncertain at that point, and the builders were desperate to ensure its success. Because of that, a man named Edward Clark was selected as the sacrifice based on his record and because he was also a former prisoner.
They bring Edward onto the ship and then place him alive inside the thick metal walls of the ship’s hull. This helped them to ensure the ship was strong and well-built. Unfortunately, the ship’s engines unexpectedly malfunctioned, causing steam to escape and explode in the boiler room walls. This might be where Clark’s body was placed.
As the walls collapse, Clark is eager to leave the ship and immediately manages to escape, finding his body near the swimming pool. It turns out to be David’s body, who is alone in the area. When Clark’s spirit enters David’s body, he begins the murders. The main motive behind Clark’s spirit is to escape from the ship, which is why he enters and controls David’s body to climb into a lifeboat and try to row away from the ship.
But the Queen Mary’s former captain knows everything. He believes that if Clark’s spirit manages to escape, the Queen Mary ship will be destroyed, and everyone aboard will die. Thus, the only solution the captain thinks will work is to kill David so that Clark’s spirit won’t be able to escape from the ship. The captain succeeds in shooting David, which leads to his death, but he is disturbed by everything that happened, so he ends his own life in his cabin.
What happened in the present time?
All the countless hauntings on the Queen Mary ship in the present time are the same as in its history, and each ghost wants to escape from the ship. All the spirits are likely from the horrifying murders David committed and might also be from other hidden dark incidents that happened on the ship. The family in the present time is directly affected by the Queen Mary when the spirit of Jackie saves Lukas.
The spirit of David attacked Lukas, but Jackie managed to pull him into the pool. What we don’t expect is that the girl has her own intentions beyond just saving Lukas. Like all the ghosts on the ship who are trapped, Jackie also wants to escape. When Lukas goes home with his parents, they find out that it’s not actually Lukas but Jackie who lives inside their son’s body. The spirit of Lukas is somehow trapped and left inside the ship.
Did they save Lukas?
Anne and Patrick spend a lot of time inside the ship in order to save Lukas. They face countless dangerous paranormal encounters while trying to look for him. But no matter how hard they look, they are unable to find Lukas and give up. They decide to let their spirits stay inside the ship while allowing Gwen and David to use their bodies to escape.
The film’s ending is confusing, as it shows that Lukas’ parents are unable to find him, and the police also arrest them. When they find out that Jackie is inside their son’s body, Anna kicks her down from their window. Her neighbor witnesses the incident, and the police are called and arrive soon after with the report that what she did is an act of homicide since the police don’t have any idea about the paranormal events happening.
