Visitors (2003)

Captivating movie !

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This Australian horror caught me by surprise, what I mean by that is I'd never heard of it so my expectations were low and doubly the type of horror movie it is rarely manages to entertain.It tells the story of Georgia Perry a 25yr old Australian girl intent on sailing around the world solo. It stars Radha Mitchell and Dominic Purcell and is actually really quite good.Mitchell carries the movie well considering she makes up the bulk of the film. It is well structured, genuinely tense and though not scary it certainly makes up for it in other areas.It looks great, the cast do a solid job and despite the ropey ending I walked away suitably impressed.The Good:Highly originalWell writtenGreat settingThe Bad:Questionable endingNot for everyoneThings I Learnt From This Movie:Dominic Purcell looks weird with hairA proper horror film with the same setting could be terrifying

This is a scary movie that didn't scare me at all. It's a film about female empowerment that thinks not going crazy is some sort of gender-redeeming accomplishment. And Visitors also asks the viewer to guess whether its main character is menaced by ghosts, monsters or her own mind and then offers up a weirdly confusing cop out ending where it turns out to be all three. I suppose I can give these filmmakers credit for trying to mix personal drama, psychological suspense and supernatural horror. That's at least one more subject that most motion pictures attempt to take on. The lackluster end result, however, convinces me that writer Everett De Roche and director Richard Franklin would have been better off keeping things simple.Georgia Perry (Radha Mitchell) is a young Australian woman trying to sale around the world with just her cat for physical company. Mentally, she's bringing along the baggage of her paralyzed father (Ray Barrett), guilt-trip monster of a mother (Susannah York) and her undermining boyfriend (Domenic Purcell) who may or may not be cheating on her. When her boat becomes stuck in fog and becalmed waters in the Indian Ocean, Georgia starts seeing things and the line between reality and madness, safety and danger disappears.Visitors is like a piece of furniture you have to put together yourself. The picture on the box looks good but when you've finished assembling it, there are all these pieces left over and you've got with something that's so unsteady it will collapse at the slightest pressure. If you ask no questions and don't think at all about what you're watching, maybe you can get something out of this movie. If you pay attention to it and expect anything to make sense, you'll be sorely disappointed.The concept of blending physical isolation and emotional turmoil is a solid one, though not original, and adding an element of horror to the mix probably seemed like a good idea. But you need to take those different elements and blend them together where they don't just connect or coincide. The isolation, turmoil and horror need to reflect and reinforce each other. In this case, they're disconnected and sometimes at cross purposes. It's often unclear exactly what Georgia, or the audience, is supposed to be frightened of, which neuters every threat the story offers up. Is the danger that she will fail in her voyage, go crazy or get killed?I mean, if the challenge to Georgia is internal, if this is a story about dealing with her unresolved feelings toward her mother, how does setting the boat on fire to fight off shape-shifting sea spiders fit into that? And the threat is external, if the castigating image of her mother is a ghost or monster, why does that menace simply disappear when Georgia gives up her feelings of family guilt?Rahda Mitchell does a find job here and Visitors looks and sounds okay, though it feels a bit long. The story is just too internally weak and scattered to amount to anything. If you're looking for a film that succeeds at what this one attempted, go check out The Descent. You don't need to welcome Visitors into your life.

It's interesting that so many reviews of this film rate it poorly. Whilst I'd not give it 10 stars, it's certainly worth 7. The script is fine, the acting good, the direction and production OK - what's not to like? I guess a lot of the people who don't "get" this film were either expecting something quite different, or else they are not sailors. The general plot has been covered here several times so I won't repeat it again at length - it is a simple situational thriller in which a lone sailor, becalmed in the Indian Ocean, begins to experience vivid hallucinations. These are at least partly in reaction to the death of both her parents whilst her round the world single-handed attempt was under way.Were the "visitors" real? No, of course not - not one - they are all complete fantasies. Lone sailors frequently experience vivid, lucid hallucinations during long voyages. Watch "Deep Water", the recent bio-pic about the Golden Globe trophy in 1968, to get a taste of this in real life. One competitor went totally nuts and jumped overboard after creating an elaborate hoax regarding his position - another saw and talked to Bing Crosby whilst in the middle of the Atlantic! It's old news.What made the film gripping for me was the realization that, isolated as she was, her own mind was her greatest enemy. At one point she jumps overboard to escape imaginary pirates, and only comes back to her senses once on board again. Another time she sets fire to the boat to fight the "visitors". That's REAL terror - the knowledge that in an isolated and totally self-sufficient environment, you may do yourself or your only means of survival real damage during an hallucination. The one person you can absolutely trust, yourself, is suddenly someone to be feared. Truly terrifying, more so than any ghost story, and the actual point of the film.The end is sound and not at all muddled, as some people have said. She comes to grips with the death of her parents, most importantly by realizing that she was not to blame for the accident that left her father crippled or for her mother's eventual suicide. Her boyfriend is apparently unfaithful and her sponsor for the race has backed out. So, she does the best thing possible - she crosses the finishing line and then without stopping turns around and sails on to new horizons in New Zealand, perhaps to find the man with whom (it is hinted) she had a relationship before leaving on her voyage.Her mental stability is restored, and she's ready for life again, symbolized by her cat no longer "talking" to her, but just being a normal cat. Those who don't "get" the ending probably prefer simplistic endings where everything works out happily ever after for everyone. Go watch a Disney film instead - you'll probably prefer that.

A confident young Australian lady Georgia Perry is attempting to sail around the world solo (although her cat Taco is there for the ride too) on her 38-foot-yacht Leander. But the wind has fallen and now she's stuck adrift in a foggy stretch of the Indian Ocean. It's against the spirit (and rules) to use the engines. So she keeps herself occupied by using her two-way radio. However several days have past and her situation is the same, but Georgia's deprived mind is starting to play tricks on her. Where dreams turn into delusions and emotional scars of the past seem to plague her aboard the ship. From talking to her cat to encountering pirates. Now she's trying her best to depict what's a real threat and what's not.Richard Franklin's "Visitors" is a broodingly ambitious exercise, but because of a terribly flawed Everett Deroche's screenplay (which mixes a variety film's premise together), it becomes one hell of a bumpy sea ride on calm waters. The film plays out like a psychological mood trip, where the alienation of the lone protagonist is beautifully illustrated and manipulated by Franklin that it brings us into her universe (or mind-set). In doing so it makes the ever-increasing delusions and stark reality hard to distinguish. Now who's real? Was it in her head? Or was she payed a visit by spirits? This ambiguity is never quite cleared up. Franklin being a true fan of Hitchcock manages transport that factor to the screen with slick finesse and good timing by stacking one sudden, but effectively subtle jump after another that heavily relies on the anxious intensity and implied sounds. However at times the unnaturally forced script (mostly the family / love life drama side of the story) is hard to digest and can take away from the ominous build up with poor inclusions that only muddle or hinder the atmosphere and narrative. The fear and feelings that are cooked up in the jerky material can be an up and down experience. It just lacks some bite and becomes incredibly too light within its cleansing context that its leads to a blandly unfulfilling payoff.It's tautly penned out and unpredictably captivating in spots, but it's the arresting visions, Nerida Tsyon-Chew's hauntingly melancholy music score and a suitably acute lead performance by Radha Mitchell that does the job. Mitchell manages to capture all the emotions and portray them in a well-balanced and visually genuine performance that creates empathy. Susannah York who plays Georgia's mother has some striking scenes and manages to give a thoughtfully well layered, but quite chilling performance. Ray Barrett brings a lot hear to the role of Georgia's father Bill. Another well-done element was Ellery Ryan's effortlessly novel cinematography that set up the atmosphere and disorienting air exceptionally well. Even the screeching sound effects and shadowy dark lighting adequately comes together in certain jittery set pieces.Simply an okay feature highlighted by some impressive aspects and its eerie tone, but with a stronger screenplay it could've been a promising foray rather than a scratchy one.