Visitors (November 10/03)

Or The Shining on a boat.

Set almost entirely on a 44-foot ship, the film follows Georgia Perry (Radha Mitchell) as she attempts to beat the women's record for sailing around the world. The journey is expected to take around six months, and though Georgia's brought along a pet cat for company, she doesn't fare too well without human companionship.

Though Visitors has been stylishly directed by Richard Franklin (Psycho 2, Road Games) and star Mitchell gives an above-average performance, the movie never quite manages to make an impact. The film's core problem is the fact that Georgia goes crazy almost immediately, which makes it virtually impossible to sympathize with her plight. She's barely made her way past dry land before she's making conversation with the cat, who - in her mind - responds with a deep male voice. It's sort of the Jack-Nicholson-in-The-Shining syndrome; we never really get to see what this character is like while, you know, sane.

But rapping with the cat proves to be the least of Georgia's problems, as she's soon convinced that various folks are trying to kill her - including her looney tunes mother and a gang of vicious pirates (no, really). It gets to the point where we're unsure of what's real and what isn't; logic dictates that the pirates are a figment of Georgia's overactive imagination, but how to explain the hickey left after she makes out with one of them? Presumably that's in her mind as well, and if that's the case, the entire movie could be one long daydream for all we know. There has to be some semblance of reality to keep us interested; this isn't a Bunuel flick, after all.

It's the sort of thing that would've worked far better as a 22-minute Twilight Zone episode, as the film eventually becomes awfully repetitive. Having said that, Franklin does a nice job of creating a creepy atmosphere in which literally nothing is what it seems. And Mitchell, best known for her work in Pitch Black, is far better than one would expect from a movie of this ilk. She's completely believable as this determined yet clearly unhinged woman that often behaves like someone with manic depressive tendencies (she'll go from pure joy to all-out rage within seconds).

In the end, though, the movie just isn't entertaining enough to warrant a recommendation. Despite what the packaging promises, there's not much chance fans of Dead Calm will find themselves similarly thrilled by Visitors.