Written by The Location Guide on Oct 9, 2015. Posted in On Location

Horror movie Vessels to film onboard ship The Queen Mary in California

New horror film Vessels is set to become the first feature to shoot on famous cruise ship The Queen Mary. The story is inspired by tales of ghosts haunting the liner, which has been permanently moored in Long Beach, California, since being retired in the late 1960s.

The Queen Mary was launched in 1936 and spent 30 years ferrying passengers on cruises across the North Atlantic. She was converted into a troop ship during the Second World War.

“Vessels will be the first-ever feature film about The Queen Mary and will be theatrically released nationwide, so it will being a great deal of exposure and notoriety to The Queen Mary and to Long Beach as a whole,” said The Queen Mary’s Director of Entertainment and Events Steve Sheldon, in comments to the Long Beach Post.

Filming on ships is notoriously challenging due to the cramped conditions and the fact that screen stories often require naval vessels. These types of productions are generally only undertaken by filmmakers on big-budget productions that have a close relationship with the military and are going to portray the armed forces in a positive light.

High-profile productions filmed at sea in recent years have included Paul Greengrass’ modern piracy drama Captain Phillips (above) and Peter Berg’s alien invasion movie Battleship.

Greengrass spent weeks filming on a cargo ship off the Maltese coast, before relocating to Virginia to make use of a series of active naval vessels. Berg used a combination of real warships and floating sets, and filmed in the waters around Hawaii.

(Image: Jason Boland/Columbia Pictures)