Review of Dead Calm (1989) by Cory T — 19 Oct 2013

'Dead Calm' is invariably similar to 'Ravenous' insofar as an isolated, seemingly impotent stranger is found adrift and recapitulates a macabre tale of survival when, in actuality, he is the perpetrator of the crimes.

But 'Dead Calm' accelerates at an exponential rate due to the increasingly claustrophobic setting aboard the sailboat. Before we are submerged into the cat-and-mouse brinksmanship with Hughie, we are introduced to the saturnine backstory of how John and Rae are bereaved over their toddler son's death in a car accident (which is shown in assaultive, exploitative explicitness).

Dean Semler's cinematography of The Great Barrier Reef is a portrait of seafaring mirages that harbors a sense of dread. The marital friction infuses the film with unease and we wholeheartedly sympathize that John adjudicates that an oceanic voyage would be a remedial exercise while Rae silently abhors it (she castigates the trip in her diary).

At times, it feels stagy with the contrivances around being stranded on the boat but those instances are nugatory at best. 'Dead Calm is wickedly Hitchcockian entertainment with a brilliantly prickly performance by Zane who is a mannered basket-case of flinching body language until he exposes himself to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.