60 Nights of Horror 2022 # 2: Dead Calm (1989)

Sam Neill Week continues!

Dead Calm (1989)

The film is based on a 1963 novel by Charles Williams, which inspired an ill-fated self financed Orson Welles project that was suspended in 1970 and then abandoned in 1973 with the death of his leading man, Laurence Harvey of cancer at 45. The book bears many similarities to the highly publicized 1961 Bluebelle murders, in which a former sailor murdered his wife and four family members of the boat he was captaining before intentionally scuttling it and escaping in a dinghy. (nabbed that from wiki so enjoy that rabbit hole)

The film differs from the book in many ways that make the story better, in my opinion. The opening sequence with the car accident, for example, never happened. Instead of honeymooning, John and Rae Ingram are out on their boat, the Saracen, using the isolation of the Pacific Ocean to process the loss of their child. Rae, whether or not she's actually responsible for the crash, carries the weight of the loss in only the way a woman who feels like she's only good for one thing can: prescriptions, periods of dissociation, and finding solace in long stretches of silence.

In many ways this is her movie, it's her processing her guilt and grief and coming out on the other side, while her husband does his best to be a good support system for her. Support is what he does best, which is common in age-gap relationships.

There is an inherent power imbalance in age-gap relationships, however happy the partners are. John is literally twice Rae's age, and Sam Neill (39 at the time of filming) and Nicole Kidman (19) were the parents of a toddler. That means he had to have scooped her up as a teen, probably still in high school. She came straight from her parents house and became a wife and mother. She has zero life experience outside of the marriage, and zero independence. John was in the Navy when she was born. He has a whole career and lifetime of advantages on her, and how long did she have her drivers license before the crash that killed their child? Not long. She is out here in the middle of the ocean, with a man who supports her entirely, and an antagonist who is certainly more age-appropriate, if nothing else.

When they approach a slowly sinking yacht, the Orpheus, in the middle of the ocean, they quickly go to investigate and help whoever they can. Hughie Warriner is the sole survivor after his friends all died from botulism poisoning, and he's been alone and adrift for several days.

John, a high ranking Australian Navy veteran, is immediately suspicious of Hughie's story. Once they get him aboard and resting, John goes over to the Orpheus to fact check. Hughie comes to just in time to realize this, beats Rae unconscious and commandeers the Saracen, abandoning John aboard a sinking ship.

From this point on, it's really 2 movies: John trying to survive on the Orpheus, and Rae and Hughie struggling for power back on the Saracen.

Boiled down, it's John's maturity and predictability that make him a source of security for Rae, versus Hughie's youth and freedom which translates, cautionary tale style, into irresponsible homicidal mania.

The original book has 5 characters instead of 3. John finds the skipper and his wife aboard the Orpheus alive, which makes sense because in the absence of videotape, there needs to be someone to tell John what really happened.

Although one of the worst things a horror or a psychological thriller can do is try to explain or boil down the psychosis of the antagonist. Like when Rob Zombie did Halloween, bless his heart but nobody needed that, it is so much scarier when we do not understand why the villain is doing these villain things. Don't demystify the shape that is the focus of our fear. Hughie is charming, unpredictable, one minute he's being adorable and even lovable, and the next minute he’s beating the shit out of you. Wild card, baby!

We are left alone with him on the boat with Rae, knowing he can't be trusted. He is constantly drawing attention to himself, making noise and playing music, and in this way we can always hear Hughie without necessarily seeing him, making him feel like an omnipresent threat. Suddenly the open ocean feels claustrophobic.

One of the cool things this movie does is when it plays with close ups, It utilizes the same camera tricks used in silence of the lambs when Clarice Starling is talking with Hannibal Lecter. In the close up scenes where they're talking face to face, Clarice is almost always slightly camera right meanwhile Hannibal is staring directly into the camera. As a result, you're placed in her position, seeing him through her eyes as he stares right through you. During some of the confrontations with Rae and Hughie, we get this same feeling, when she first confronts him about what actually happened aboard the Orpheus. Hughie is placed front and center looking straight into you so you're placed in Rae's shoes when he is at first defensive, and then suddenly extremely threatening. He does this often, turning on a dime from jovial to menacing, and you're walking on eggshells hoping the abusive partner who’s been love-bombing you doesn’t snap.

The cat and mouse games that follow prove Rae and Hughie to be equally matched: she is every bit as cunning as he is. She uses her apparent innocence and charm, sexually submitting to him, to get him to let down his guard. She is manipulating him. On paper, this whole situation is that of a woman in peril, but Rae has a very particular set of skills, aside from the things she's picked up from her husband (like the Morse code they use to keep in touch via the damaged radio).

She is not broken, despite her recent tragedy, and in a way the conflict with Hughie brings out a resourcefulness that maybe she didn't even know she had. She is vulnerable, she has nowhere to hide, and she never gives up. She is in a dangerous situation, but she isn't in peril. John is in peril. She is the hero of this film, unquestionably.

Parallel: After the car accident in the hospital, when the nurse is shining the light into Rae's eyes, her pupils are fixed and unresponsive as John keeps asking her to come back to him to stay with him. And when she comes back to the wreckage after the storm, she is shining a light in the darkness and she is able to find him, pull him aboard, and save him. It's almost as if even when she got out of the hospital, she hadn’t really come back yet, she was still in autopilot, and going through the motions as she's still processing the loss of their child, the one gift that someone her age would have been able to give someone his age. The responsibility she feels for the loss feels like a chip on her shoulder, so when she overpowers Hughie and makes it back to John, it feels like she's doing the one thing he asked her to do, which was come back to him, stay with him. Rae saves herself, and she saves John in a way that he was not able to do for her so it's incredibly empowering. She had to do it for herself.

The one thing I would change about this extremely well-made film is its ending. Not the original ending as intended by Phillip Noyce and screenwriter Terry Hayes, no, that one is perfect. And the film should have ended there. But it didn't, and it shows. There is a final sequence, shot several months later, with a final conflict that is so desperately, laughably stupid that it turns the entire experience into a farce. It's the fifth season of Babylon 5 that no one asked for, but it got a talented crew back together for another paid shoot, so I'm not gonna complain TOO much.