Dead Calm (1989, Australia)

In director Phillip Noyce's R-rated, taut erotic horror-thriller produced by George Miller - its tagline was: "High Seas. Deep Terror. Try to Stay Calm." The tense, claustrophobic, psychological suspense potboiler (with basically only three characters and very little dialogue) centered on the tenacious efforts of a terrorized, strong-willed wife to outwit and defeat a psychopathic castaway.

Terry Hayes' screenplay was adapted from Charles Miller's 1963 novel Dead Calm. Filmed mostly on location in the Great Barrier Reef area of northern Australia, it provided the first leading role for Australian actress Nicole Kidman.

The film's budget of $10 million (Australian dollars) was basically recouped with its worldwide revenue of $10.2 million.

• in the film's opening, husband John Ingram (Sam Neill), a Royal Australian Navy career officer, arrived at a train station but was greeted not by his family but by two police officers; he was taken to a hospital to see his badly-injured and emotionally-scarred wife Rae Ingram (Nicole Kidman)
• a flashback reenacted the horrible car wreck-accident on a rainy night that she survived (with severe facial injuries), but took the life of their toddler son in the back seat; he had unhooked his carseat's seat belt to pick up his dropped teddy bear; Rae took her eyes off the road and crashed head-on into another car; the young boy was propelled through the windshield, was rendered unconscious and died about 20 minutes later when an ambulance arrived

John Ingram (Sam Neill)

Rae Ingram (Nicole Kidman)

• in the next scene, as Rae was at the start of a long period of recovery, the married couple, with their dog Ben, attempted to forget and recover from the tragedy; they were taking a sailing trip on their sailboat-yacht Saracen in the Pacific waters; Rae was still experiencing haunting nightmares of the accident; she wanted to return home, but he told her: "When you're strong, then we'll go home and we'll start again"
• one morning at dawn (on April 2nd, after 32 days at sea), they found themselves in an extended, exceptionally calm period of no wind ("dead calm") in the middle of nowhere, and had seen no other boats for 3 weeks; the couple spotted a black schooner that had "been through some weather"; John made a note in his log about the sighting
• they rescued Hughie Warriner (Billy Zane), a panic-stricken, unhinged castaway in a dinghy; he rowed up, raced on board and cowered in fear in a corner; he explained he had been outward bound from Tahiti for Fiji for 32 days
• the frantic Hughie claimed that he had survived a slowly-sinking schooner named Orpheus ("Trouble is she's going down, that's the trouble. She's not gonna last the morning"); he described how everyone died 10 days earlier, "one by one" from botulism poisoning after eating canned salmon; he had a handful of passports for the five other passengers, including one male Britisher named Russell Bellows (Rod Mullinar); Hughie refused to return to his boat ("I can't go back there right now. Ever") and went to sleep; John locked the cabin door from the outside - just in case

Passport Photo of UK Citizen Russell Bellows - A Photographer

One of the Snapshots of Models

FREE South Sea Island Cruises Advertised by Bellows

• John looked through Hughie's belongings and found snapshots of young female models (some of the other passengers?); in the yacht's log, he saw notes about a storm, strange drawings, and a notation about Hughie telling Bellows he refused to continue filming; the crew had run out of fresh food, and the motor failed; John saw a newspaper clipping advertising: "SOUTH SEA ISLAND CRUISES - Four young women wanted for photo assignment. Must be attractive and broadminded. CONTACT RUSSELL BELLOWS, Papeete"
• John left the castaway with his wife, while he took Hughie's small dinghy back to the Orpheus to investigate Hughie's dubious claims ("I just can't swallow it") - he found himself on the sinking craft and in danger of drowning himself and fearing for his own life; on the disabled Orpheus, he waded in calf-deep water through the interior of the disheveled cabin; as he opened up one of the hatches, it unleashed a flood of water and naked dead bodies (four women and a male) including a decapitated head - the members of a low-budget photography or film crew (a male photographer/director and four "Cruise Girl" models-actresses); it became clear to John that Hughie was a psycho-homicidal drifter and mass murderer who had actually violently slaughtered the entire crew on his vessel

John in Danger of Drowning and Sinking in the Schooner, Surrounded by Dead Corpses

• John made frantic efforts to return in the dinghy and row back to his own yacht to warn Rae, but his yelling spooked the unstable and domineering Hughie who had escaped from his locked cabin, pushed Rae aside and began struggling with her on deck, in full view of John - she was knocked unconscious; Hughie's plan was to motor away in the opposite direction and sail off with his kidnapped victim; John was unable to jump onboard - he ended up in the water, and watched as the yacht pulled away from him; he realized the water around him was bloodied from an upper left-arm injury, and climbed back in the dinghy; John returned to the Orpheus that had only a few hours left before it would sink; Rae was now alone on the Ingram's yacht-schooner with the terrorizing, deranged killer who was deliberately directing the sailboat away from John's location
• John was finally able to pump out some of the water, and start the Orpheus' ailing motor, in an attempt to chase after his own yacht; meanwhile, after Rae regained consciousness, she was unsuccessful in urging Hughie to turn the boat around and rescue her husband off the sinking ship; he insisted that everyone was after him: "Now, they were trying to kill me. Do you understand?"
• with intermittent power restored on the boat, John viewed video footage (including two topless females) and the photographer-director Bellows expressing anger toward Hughie: ("When I want your advice on how to take photographs, I'll ask you. Until then, keep your mouth shut"); John was able to give chase after his own boat the Saracen; Rae determined through radar that they were separated by a distance of 42 miles; the couple was able to communicate via radio - he could hear her, but she couldn't hear his voice due to his damaged radio; cleverly, she asked questions and he answered with one click for yes, and two clicks for no; he was able to tell her that his boat wasn't sinking and that he wasn't hurt; they basically determined that she should try to stop the boat

Cat-and-Mouse Game with the Boat's Keys - Ben Retrieved the Key From the Ocean

• Rae took the main ignition keys and threw them into the ocean, but she was sabotaged by her dog Ben, who thought she was playing fetch and dutifully brought the keys back to her; she was ultimately unable to prevent Hughie from navigating the boat away from the Orpheus; Rae had no choice but to give in and be "friends" with Hughie
• as John made more nautical calculations to catch up to his boat, he listened to more videotape rantings of Hughie who was taunting photographer Bellows: "Russell Bellows, big, brave war photographer. The man on the edge capturing the face of death. But now, no, now, appearing with his five new refugees. Yes, that's right. Five suckers on a sinking boat. The ultimate session. Moral decay. What 60-minute wet dreams are made of, am I right?"; John realized the boat was sinking further and went to investigate with a dangerous underwater dive into the hull - he was shocked to see the bloated corpse of Bellows
• Rae was able to communicate with John one more time that she had failed to get rid of the ignition keys; however, she promised to get to John's boat by sunset before his boat was predicted to sink in 6 hours, and then tried to tell him that she loved him, but she lost all radio communications as the power went dead on his boat - and she became very distressed
• Hughie came below deck and noticed how upset she was; he began to touch her face and hands, and kiss her, and she realized she must succumb to his sexual advances and make love to him - as part of a resourceful strategy to possibly catch him off guard and eventually subdue the psychotic madman
• she let him passionately kiss her and touch her left breast; he dragged her over to the floor where Rae laid on top of him and removed her white T-shirt; he ripped off her shorts and panties and she was stark naked atop him

On the Floor Stripped Naked and Lying on Top of the Psychotic Killer Hughie

• however, she told him that she had to go to the bathroom - she put on a short black robe and snuck up to the top deck to assemble a shotgun; her ploy was aborted when he came looking for her and she alleged that she was looking for a pack of cigarettes; they retreated to her cabin bed, where Rae surrendered and accepted intercourse without having any other further excuses to use - she experienced an intense, gasping and faked orgasm
• back on the sinking Orpheus, John was forced to give up the chase and save himself from the sinking craft, as he gathered useful supplies during an intense lightning rainstorm; he found himself trapped when the broken mast from a lightning bolt blocked his exit hatch, and he feared drowning under the deck
• after having sex, Rae was able to convince Hughie to drink a sedative-laden lemonade drink, and then successfully made a second attempt to get the shotgun from the upper deck and load it with shells, while Hughie was distracted adjusting the sails; although Hughie was beginning to succumb to the drug's effects, he caught her with the shotgun; they wrestled for it and he confiscated it, but could not steady himself enough to fire accurately, and he wasted his ammo with two aimless shots
• Hughie lunged at her as she grabbed a spear gun and fled from him and locked herself in her cabin room; while defending herself with the spear gun inside the bedroom cabin against him, she thought she had hit him through the door and cautiously emerged from the room; unharmed, he lept at her and began to strangle her, but then passed out; as the door on the cabin slowly shut, Rae sadly realized she had accidentally struck their dog Ben with her harpoon and killed him
• the resourceful Rae tied up the unconscious Hughie on the lower deck floor and then sealed his window exits with nails; she realized to her horror that the boat was out of fuel and just drifting, so she deployed the sails to set a course back in the direction of her husband
• meanwhile, John's pumping efforts were failing and he was left with only a small pocket of air-space above the flooded lower deck; he was forced to make a daring underwater swim to find a way to escape, and found an exit through the schooner's damaged hull; he then set the schooner on fire to signal his location; Rae saw a reddish light on the horizon and set the yacht's direction toward it

John's Burning and Sinking of the Orpheus

Rae With a Harpoon Spear-Gun

Hughie Shot in the Left Shoulder With Harpoon

• Hughie revived and cut through his constraining rope with a broken mirror shard, but after he burst through lower deck's door to confront Rae, she held him at bay with a harpoon spear-gun; when he came closer, she shot him in the left shoulder; when he approached her and grinned lasciviously, she punched him in the groin and in the head with her weapon and knocked him out; then after deploying the yacht's emergency rescue raft in the water, she pushed Hughie's unconscious body onto the raft and set him adrift; meanwhile, with a flare and spotlight, Rae located John's own makeshift rescue raft of floating debris nearby and brought him onboard
• the next morning, the couple noticed Hughie's empty, free-floating life raft in the open sea, and happily believed that he had perished; Rae sank the raft with two flare-gun shots, although a panning shot to the other side of the boat where a rope dangled into the water (with blood smears on the boat's side) hinted that Hughie was possibly alive and had climbed back on board
• Rae returned to the bow of the deck after another refreshing swim, where her husband helped to rinse her hair of the salt water, and shampoo her hair; he tempted her by mentioning some 'extravagant' things: "A steaming hot bath that you can slip into up to your ears with coffee and a croissant...covered in bitter and dark marmalade"; he suddenly left the deck for awhile to prepare a lunch meal, as she put her head back and closed her eyes; a bird's eye-view showed her relaxed and reclining backwards
• a pair of dirty, bloodied hands resumed the soothing shampooing some time later, she fantasized what she would like: "You know what I'd love for lunch? Fresh asparagus, then, um, pasta. Angel hair pasta with heaps of basil, garlic, olive oil, and, um, apple pie. Yeah. Uh, John, do you have the towel?" - the film's last line of dialogue
• suddenly, she realized that the hands belonged to the vengeful Hughie, who had reappeared in the startling shock 'return-from-the-dead' twist ending; he attempted to cover her mouth to stifle her screams, and to strangle her
• John reappeared with a beautifully-prepared meal tray, and saw the 'silhouetted' struggle occurring behind the sail; he dropped the tray, grabbed a flare gun, and aimed it at Hughie

Suspenseful Shampoo Scene With Hughie Attacking Rae
John Firing Flare Gun	Flare Pierced Sail	Hughie's Death

• the fiery flare tore through the sail, struck Hughie in the mouth, exploded, and forcefully propelled him backwards off the deck into the ocean; presumably, he was now dead (and killed once and for all), floating away face-down, as the relieved couple hugged each other