Cabin Boy

Cabin Boy is a 1994 American fantasy comedy film and the directorial debut of Adam Resnick. Chris Elliott stars as Nathaniel Mayweather, a conceited and arrogant snob who accidentally boards a fishing vessel and gets swept into a bizarre sea voyage while trying to redirect it to Hawaii. The project was originally developed by Elliott and Resnick for Tim Burton to direct, but Burton chose to helm *Ed Wood* instead, staying on as co-producer with Denise Di Novi. High expectations came with Burton’s name attached, but the film was panned by critics and audiences and bombed at the box office. It later developed a cult following through home video.

**Plot** Nathaniel Mayweather, a snobbish, self-centered, and virginal “fancy lad,” graduates and is invited by his father to sail to Hawaii on *The Queen Catherine*. After annoying his limousine driver, he is forced to walk. He takes a wrong turn into a small fishing village and meets Kenny, the imbecilic cabin boy and first mate of *The Filthy Whore*, which Nathaniel mistakes for his ship, assuming it’s part of a theme. The next morning, Captain Greybar finds Nathaniel aboard and informs him the boat won’t return to land for three months. Nathaniel fails to convince any fisherman to sail to Hawaii but persuades Kenny. The crew enters Hell’s Bucket, a Bermuda Triangle-like zone where strange events occur. A fierce storm hits, Kenny is knocked overboard and drowns. With only one island nearby, the crew heads there. Without a cabin boy, Greybar forces Nathaniel to do chores in exchange for passage to Hawaii and lessons in becoming a better person.

Nathaniel fails all his chores, so the fishermen give him another: dragging him on a floating raft for a week. He quickly runs out of supplies, drinks salt water, and suffers severe sunburn after mistaking cooking oil for lotion. He begins to hallucinate, seeing Kenny’s ghost and a floating cupcake that spits tobacco. He falls into the water and is rescued by a shark-man. After nine days, he is pulled back aboard and recounts the event. Skunk and Big Teddy reveal the shark-man is Chocki, offspring of a Viking and a female shark. Nathaniel spots a beautiful woman, Trina, swimming. She is pulled up in a net, and Nathaniel becomes infatuated. Unhappy with another passenger, the fishermen decide to strand Nathaniel and Trina on the island they’re approaching. Once there, the c