Dead Calm
Short description
After losing their young son in a car accident, Australian naval officer John Ingram and his wife Rae retreat to their yacht for a voyage across the Pacific, hoping the distance will help them cope with their grief. Their isolation is broken when they encounter a drifting vessel and take aboard a lone survivor, a frightened young man named Hughie Warriner. His account of how he came to be there does not hold up under John's scrutiny, and the couple's attempt to help a stranger turns into a struggle for survival on the open water.
Phillip Noyce directed the film, the third of the sixteen features he has made, following Blind Fury and preceding Patriot Games. Terry Hayes wrote the screenplay and produced alongside George Miller and Doug Mitchell. Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill star as Rae and John Ingram, with Billy Zane as Hughie Warriner. Made for about 10 million US dollars, it returned roughly 8 million worldwide, while drawing substantial attention in its home country.
On IMDb the film holds a 6.8 rating from around 48,000 votes, and on TMDB a 6.6 from 858 votes. A critics' rating of 7.5 from 31 reviews places critical opinion somewhat above the general audience response. The film runs 96 minutes and mixes action, drama, horror and thriller elements.
What's left behind the scenes
- The novel of the same name by Charles Williams (1909-1975), upon which Philip Noyes based this film, was to a certain extent based on a real murder that occurred near the coast of Florida in 1961. The Dupper family hired a man named Julian Harvey, a decorated veteran of World War II, to take them from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas on a small yacht. Harvey's wife also accompanied them at sea. While at sea, on November 12, 1961, Harvey killed his own wife (for the insurance money) and four members of the Dupper family (the head of the family, Arthur, his wife Jean, their fourteen-year-old son Brian, and their seven-year-old daughter Rene). Eleven-year-old Terry Jo was also on board, but she was asleep at the time, and when she woke up from the screams, it was too late to save anyone. Harvey remained below deck hoping the yacht would sink. He himself got into a lifeboat, leaving Terry Jo on the deck. However, she managed to use a cork board to stay afloat. The girl drifted across the Atlantic for four days without food or water until she was rescued by a Greek freighter. And Harvey was assisted by the Coast Guard, he returned to Florida and told how the yacht sank during a storm, and he was the only survivor. He was later told that Terry Jo had been found alive and was being brought to Florida. Harvey committed suicide.
- The novel of the same name by Charles Williams (1909-1975), which Phillip Noyce used as the basis for this film, was to some extent based on a real-life group murder that took place off the coast of Florida in 1961 aboard the yacht Bluebelle.
- Before filming began, Nicole Kidman learned to operate a yacht in open water. The actress herself steered the yacht in the storm scenes near the end of the film.
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