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Chapter 1: What is the plot of the movie Dead Calm?
I'm going to make him an awfully good one. I feel the need, the need for speed. He's watched every movie more than once. He's Stephen Fennec. Go ahead, make my day. He's watched the latest Disney movies with his kids, but that's about it. He's Trevor Long. You talking to me? Together, they bring you the best movies you've never seen. Have a look for you. I will find you. And I will kill you.
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The best movies you've never seen. The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. With Steven Fenwick and Trevor Long. This is the captain. Brace for impact.
Hello and welcome, one and all, to The Best Movies You've Never Seen. This is our little podcast where I present some movies to Trevor Long. My name is Stephen Fennec. I'm the movie nerd of the duo here. It's true. And Trev's never seen many movies until now. He's building up his vocabulary week for week.
And the idea of the show is for Trevor to watch a movie, at my suggestion, that he's never seen before and perhaps that you've never seen before. Perhaps. There's a lot of movies from this movie we're doing today. Dead Calm was released in 1989. Really? That's a while ago. Wow, okay. Maybe some listeners here that weren't even born then. Right, okay.
I hadn't dated in my head, so that's fascinating. Yeah, released in 1989, Dead Calm starring Nicole Kidman, a very young Nicole Kidman. Oh, yeah. Sam Neill. And Billy Zane, directed by Philip Noyce, a great Aussie director who'd go on to direct some other big blockbusters as well.
Now, this is a – when you describe this to someone, I'd call this like a horror thriller, like a psychological horror thriller. I don't know. Look, I still think you used the term horror loosely, but certainly a psychological thriller, no doubt. Yeah, and it's a very – like there's only three characters in it, right? Yeah. So it's very tight. Casting was easy. It's really easy.
Well, I've got the three. Set on the high seas.
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Chapter 2: How did Dead Calm impact Nicole Kidman's career?
Fetch is your all-in-one entertainment service. And this is a great example. Not every movie is available to rent or buy on any platform, including Fetch. But because Fetch has so many inputs. So, yep, you can watch your free-to-air TV. You can watch included TV channels or other subscription channels.
You can watch the streaming apps, Netflix, Stan, Disney++, all of the local catch-up apps like Nine Now, 7 Plus, 10 Plus. ABC iView and SBS On Demand. Well, when you do a universal search on your fetch box, it'll show you where these items are. And this one instantly took me to ABC iView. And because I hadn't used it before, I had to log in.
But then it just took me straight into this movie after I'd logged in. So it was a seamless situation, easy to use. And it means there are 10,000 plus, in fact, 11,000 plus movies to watch, buy, rent, enjoy on your Fetch box through either the rent or buy or through the subscriptions or free services that you've got access to.
And it actually exposes you to how much free content there really is out there on the internet for you because a lot of it's available right there on Fetch. You can buy a Fetch box from major retailers, get one from Telstra, or you can go to FetchTV.com.au. We have now watched Dead Calm. Just give us your first impression.
You know, it's a slow burn, but very quick movie, but slow burn and just beautifully done. Like, I love the fact that I don't know that any of it is truly predictable. You can get a sense of, well, he's going to go over there. You can get a sense of some things, but... Yeah, I like the fact that it keeps you guessing a little bit.
And, you know, I wouldn't say Nicole Kidman's best movie performance. She's excellent in it. But Sam Neill's the star of this movie, I think, in terms of acting performance. Billy Zane, he was the villain. He's pretty good. I like Sam. And what is your social media post?
Oh, my social media post for this one, if you just stand by while I bring that up, is you might have heard of this early Nicole Kidman film, Dead Calm, but like me, never seen it. Well, it's worth a look. A brutal opening leads to a calm on the open water until... And the rest of it you need to see for yourself. Hidden on ABC iView, but it's worth a watch. Very good. I saw this at the movies.
I was actually playing for Souths at the time. Yep. And I remember watching this movie and... One month before I did my ACL. I did my ACL in July 89. Right. I remember seeing this at the theaters May, I think early June. Right. And then a month later I'm out with six months on my knee. Many re-watches in the meantime. Yeah, absolutely. I really enjoy this movie.
We'll talk about, thank God I got a big screen later, but it's a beautiful, very well shot film. Yeah, beautiful. Cast, not many. There's only three. Nicole Kidman plays Ray Ingram. So where is this in her career? Very early. Yeah. She goes on to play Moulin Rouge with Ewan McGregor, Baz Luhrmann's film. I think it's the 25th anniversary this year. And we are probably not going to do that again.
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Chapter 3: What real-life events inspired the story of Dead Calm?
Most of them are like that.
Okay.
Nicole Kidman was also one of your favorites, The Others, which we've done. Okay. Remember that one? Not really. You don't remember, do you? No. Remember the woman with the two kids in the big house thinking she hears the ghosts? Oh, yes. Okay. All right. I'll have to re-watch it. It's a great listen. Listen to it on our show. She was also in The Hours. She won a Best Actress Oscar for The Hours.
She plays an author. Her name doesn't escape me right now. She was also in Eyes Wide Shut opposite her then husband, Tommy Boy Cruz. And we will do this. This is a Stanley Kubrick movie. It's a bit out there, but it's worth a chat. I've only seen certain scenes. I bet you have. Yeah, I bet you have. Sam Neill, your man, plays John Ingram. And he was in, of course, Jurassic Park.
He was in The Hunt for Red October, another favourite of mine. Yes, he was. Favourite. You did love that one. In my top five movies ever. There you go. Loved that movie. He was also in Evil Angels. He played, you know, that was about the Chamberlains, Lindy Chamberlain. Oh, of course.
What's the husband's name?
Richard. Was it Richard Chamberlain? No, that's an actress. That's an actress. It's Michael Chamberlain. His name was Michael. He plays Michael Chamberlain and looks a dead ringer for Michael Chamberlain. Fair dinkum. He was also in another movie called Event Horizon, which I've seen. It's a sci-fi slash horror film. It's not bad. Not bad.
Billy Zane plays Huey Warriner, and of course he was in Titanic. That's the first line of his obituary, he was in Titanic. Right. He was also in The Phantom, and it was for fans of The Phantom, which is an internationally known character. Not quite your Batman, Superman level, but yeah, the movie was good, not great. Right. It was average. Oh, wow. But you know what? Good that they had a go.
They gave it a crack. Did you also notice Billy Zane in Back to the Future Part 2? Back to the Future Part 2. He was part of Biff's crew. Oh, is he? Yeah, one of the three guys with Biff. Oh, right. He was one of those guys. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So next time you watch it. Next time I see that, I'll notice it. There's Billy Zane. He was in the Titanic. There you go.
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Chapter 4: What are the main themes explored in Dead Calm?
Then they go through a bunch of flashbacks. Yeah. So, we see the incident, which is his wife, Ray, is driving the car. They're a little boy, cute little kid in the back. Han buckles himself. Yeah, lets himself out. I think he's, what did he drop? His teddy bear or something? And he's reaching for it. She gets distracted. Boom. Crash. Head on crash.
The child just goes straight through the windscreen and is killed. Yeah. But the next cut is to the wide open ocean and to cope with this grief and
and heal her trauma they decide to get out on their well-equipped sailing yacht the saracen and you get a sense yeah that this is not just their idea but so he talks he talks here i don't know if it's specifically in this clip about how this is what they they said it would take time and you've got to you've got to heal you've got to let it happen and so yeah it's kind of an interesting way of trying to move on from such a tragedy really we've got weeks and weeks
Calm days, calm seas. And we're gonna get strong. And when you're strong, then we'll go home and we'll start again.
because she was having nightmares and flashbacks, and that's him calming her down. Now, my little interjections are going to be called anchors, okay? An anchor here. Now, you were asking about how old they both were. At the beginning of production, which was in May 1987, Sam Neill was 39. Nicole Kidman, how old do you reckon? 21? 19. I was going to say 19. Yeah, she was 19, yeah.
She's quite young. She is super young in this. Like every shot of her, you kind of go, wow, she is so young. Yeah, she is. Wow. Anyway, weeks past, the ocean becomes glassy and still, a real dead calm. You get a real sense of the movie title there, yeah. Ray, still visibly fragile, still has nightmares and he's taken heavy prescription sedatives for a while. But old mate is constantly on guard.
Like he's basically her carrier here. So he hears her go for the pill bottle and she's shaking him out. He takes a few offers. So she's only taking what she's meant to be getting and stuff like that. Yeah, that's true. And don't forget, he's a naval captain. He's an officer. So sailing this thing is nothing for him. He's at home here. That's fine. He has no issue with this.
He's probably away at sea most of the year. But it's her that wants to go home and him that's guiding her through the ocean. Now, the silence is broken when John spots a black schooner named the Orpheus drifting on the horizon. Did you know that term before this? Yeah, I did. Come on. I swear I did, mate. It's a black sailing ship, okay? It's a schooner. Like a First Fleet-style sailing ship.
For people that don't know what we're talking about, if you haven't watched the movie, it's a First Fleet-style sailing ship. With masts. Yeah. Yeah.
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Chapter 5: How does the film create suspense with limited characters?
That's right. The deck of the schooner, tall ship, shows no signs of life. Radio calls go unanswered. But as he's looking through the binoculars, he's sort of looking at the ship. Then he tilts down and sees a frantic guy rowing. She thinks she's spotted something. So he's like, okay, let me look. Let me have a look. And there's a guy rowing a dinghy frantically away from the vessel towards them.
And like so hard towards them, he nearly runs into them. He does. He runs into the yacht. He's like, hang on a minute. The man we find is an American named Huey Warriner. This Billy Zane collapses on the deck of the Saracen in a state of terror.
32 days out. We're bound for Papua New Guinea. I'm heading for Fiji. I only bought her about three months ago. My plan had been to cruise around the Pacific, to sail around the Pacific. I mean, who would have thought, right?
What's your trouble, Mr. Werner?
Trouble?
She's going down. That's the trouble.
She's not going to last the morning. You sure? Yeah, she opened up all over. Has the water hit your engines? My engine, radio, the fucking bulkhead, galleys, everything. My only chance was to try to reach you in the dinghy.
See what Mr. Warren needs, darling, and get him to bed. Where are you going? Well, um, I ought to get over there. How many people on board? Nobody. I'm alone. I'm it. You tried to take her across the Pacific. Are they around? No. There were six of us. The others died ten days ago. One by one... Pretty full on.
And by the way, I'm with John. Didn't like him from the get go. Yeah, well, you knew something was up there. And we find out that all five of his companions, according to Huey, died from botulism. Remember he mentioned botulism? He talks about a can of salmon. John, again, being the wise man, suggests it might be botulism. So here we go.
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Chapter 6: What filmmaking techniques enhance the tension in Dead Calm?
He's going to go and fix up the boat, which is what he does. But that broad – I think the way it positions your mind at this point is great. Well, he's left alone literally in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Back on – so John rows back to the Orpheus. His boat's sailing away. But John gets back on board, and he realises he's trapped on a dying ship here.
There's no working engine at this point, no sails, a flooded hole, and he's going down. But thankfully, he's got his naval engineering skills here. He rigs the bilge pumps, plugs structural leaks, and tries to repair the engine to give chase – knowing he's in a race against time. He's got to get this boat working if he's any hope of following them. That's right.
And I think there's a bit here where you go, well, I'll mate, and especially if you go based on a true story. So here we've got what they call the split narratives too. That's right. So there's John and then there's Ray on her boat. Yes. And so you think about that original story, this is based on the bloke scuttled the ship, right?
So you can theorize that the idea here was that old mate had scuttled the ship, but not quick enough. It hasn't sunk yet. But John's smart enough to know, well, a ship is not built to sink easily. There's different ballasts and all those kind of areas. So he's smart enough to be able to go, okay, how can I try and bring this back? And that physical exertion of him... You know, pumping the build.
Literally pumping water out. It is remarkable. It's really well done. Luckily, if that was you or me, mate, we'd be dead. We'd be sinking at the bottom of the ocean. There's plenty of those moments. He's a naval engineer, so it's in his wheelhouse.
Though I will say, I think one of the underlying little plot points or stories or thoughts of this movie is just what absolute adversity does to the human character. Because there's a few moments which we'll mention where it's like... Fight or flight, eh? Exactly. Like, this is the end of you, or... You need to do this. Fight for your life. And there you go, yeah.
Wake, Rey's wake, woken up on the Saracen and finds herself held hostage.
Where is he?
He's gone.
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Chapter 7: What are the significant character dynamics in Dead Calm?
Me neither. No way. Meanwhile, back on the Saracen, Ray has snuck to the radio and establishes a brief one-way connection with John. Yeah, because he's sitting on the Orpheus trying to fix things. So the radio is on, but he can't transmit any words. But he doesn't know, right? He can click. He's just trying to solder on and fix this thing.
But I think during this clip, he realises, wait a minute, she can't hear me, but she can tell that I'm here.
I'm not reading you. One click.
One for yes, two for no.
Two clicks.
You assume it's no because he's not hurt. I like this because you work it out.
It's not sinking. Yes.
Yes.
Are you following? Yes. John, what should I do?
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Chapter 8: What are the final thoughts and ratings for Dead Calm?
What are the protocols? So, under international maritime law, the captain of any vessel is legally obligated to render assistance to anyone in distress at the sea, provided it does not endanger their own ship or crew. Right. So a private yacht rescue, you'd have to recover the guy or the person, raise the alarm, emergency communication.
So once the person's on board, you'd have to establish, broadcast your position and your situation. And the other bit is first aid and handover. So you'd administer first aid and then once whoever comes out to you, then hand that person over. That's international maritime law. Assuming you're not currently searching for an anaconda or anything like that.
Yeah.
You've got a nice one, mate. If this movie was made today, I don't think it would be much different. There'd be more advanced gear. Well, no, I thought the gear was pretty, like it had the radar on and everything. I reckon they'd have SATCOMs or something. Yes, but the same thing, all you need is one gunshot to kill it, right?
If you remade it, she'd have a satellite phone and he'd knock it out of her hand or something or smash it or something. Exactly. Every day is a school day. What's our lesson here? Don't let people on your boat. Yeah, especially ones that are aggressively rowing towards you and bashing into you. Like it just – that whole moment, it was like, mate, you just stop off. Just sit down. Relax, pal.
Yeah. But, you know, the whole thing about, you know, it's dealing with – don't forget, she's grieving. It's grief. But one way to get over the grief of your dead child is to go through another horrific incident. Yeah, well. Jesus. Well, they were looking to isolate themselves both physically and emotionally. They wanted to be alone. So, yeah, civilization versus isolation.
Would you go sort of masculinity, sort of control, masculine control, him trying to take over?
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a bit there. There's lots of things to explore. The other thing is, you know, maybe trust your partner's gut instinct. Yeah. Trust your partner. Trust the gun. He's a sailor, for God's sake. Trust him. Load the gun. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's the theme. Load the gun. Best use of the pause button. Now, did you notice at the start he's writing his position?
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