DVD Visitors

Georgia speaks to Robby aboard the Nordic Prince. He tells her that one of his crewmen hanged himself in the bilges. Later he tries to get a warning to her about the bilges but she looses his signal.

It seemed to me that the filmmakers had two different ideas for the causation of the hallucinations but they never followed up on either. It could have been a really good horror picture or adventure film if they'd cut the horror element. Overall it was confusing and has no real resolution to the paranormal phenomenon. Not recommended!

Georgia Perry is 25 years old and an avid sailor. She sets herself on the biggest challenge of all: Sailing around the world non-stop. The rules are that she is not allowed any company except for her cat, must not ever set foot on land and have no contact with the outside world except with her boyfriend by radio transmission. The journey is expected to take about 5 months.

By the time "Visitors" begins, Georgia is already about ¾ of the way around the world and seems to be doing just fine, except for the occasional bouts of loneliness. Throughout the film, we see clips of Georgia's life before she decided to set sail. All indications point to a happy life and fine relationship with her parents and her lover. And then the noises begin...At night while trying to sleep, she hears footsteps on the deck, and distant voices. Her cat talks to her. Her dead mom pays a visit. Slowly but surely, Georgia is going insane. And the flashbacks get darker and darker. At first the flashbacks were all happy but as the film progresses we are shown clips of Georgia's past that indicate her life was far from the rosy picture painted on earlier. It is this sudden transformation from happy sane Georgia to tormented soul Georgia that makes the film as creepy as it is. The descent into madness is not sudden, but gradual.

What "Visitors" lacks in action and pacing it more than makes up for with atmosphere, atmosphere that changes as Georgia's mood changes. The bright blue sky, crystal clear water and warm sunshine of the opening sequences are quickly replaced with the violent roar of the sea, pitch black darkness and dense fog as Georgia's feelings of dread increase. Aussie actress Rhada Mitchell pretty much has to carry the picture by herself, and does a fine job. One of the challenges I found of watching this film is that it's so weirded out and hallucinatory that we are left to wonder what is real and what's not, and are never offered any explanation, not even at film's end. The appearance of Georgia's dead mother as a hallucination is a given, but how about the boatload of pirates? Or the aborigenese midnight lover? If not real, then how come Georgia woke up with a hickey? All in all, a fine little film but not for those looking for coherence or logic. It's not one of those films where the pieces fall neatly in place by the end. Whether the threat is real or imagined is up to the viewer to decide.

Georgia Perry (Radha Mitchell) is on the last log of the first sole female around-the-world cruise by a yacht. She is not to set foot on the land during the course, and if she uses the engine, she is disqualified instantly. But now her yacht is not moving at all, because of the dead calm that seemingly stopped everything around the ship. She can only talk to her cat (her only partner), and to the finace waiting for her in Australia through the radio.

However, Georgia hears some strange sound, and sees the figures of the person(s) who should never be on board. What does that mean?

"The Visitors" is not a horror film. The film actually tries to include many factors -- thrills, symbolism, meaning of life, etc. -- and achieves none of them. The reference to poetry (S.T. Coleridge) is clumsy or insignificant, and the frequent flashbacks to the heroine's past only detract the claustrophobic suspence of the story. Possibly as psychological thriller it works best, but also it misses potential that the orginal premise has.

Incredibly, there are many (at least three) scenes in which Radha Mitchell's character is in bikini (but her skin does not seem tanned much). How the filmmakers thought about the scenes, I leave it to you, but it certainly does not hurt.

Radha Mitchell shows pretty good acting as the lead, and her meeting with her beloved dad (Ray Barrett) is even touching. Suzannah York's nervous mom is also convincingly portrayed, so while watching I started to think that the filmmakers should have thrown away any "horror" part of the film, and the end result would have been much better. As it is, "The Visitors" remains as it is, just an OK thriller.

If you really want to see a thriller on the lonely boat, see the Aussie film "Dead Calm" starring Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane. That was really scary.