Dead Calm is a 1989 thriller film starring Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane. It was based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Williams. The film was directed by Australian filmmaker Phillip Noyce and filmed in the Great Barrier Reef.

A troubled couple, Australian naval officer John Ingram (Neill) and his wife Rae (Kidman), lose their son in a car crash. John hopes that some time alone will help Rae, who was driving the car, cope, and the couple head out for a vacation alone on their yacht. In the middle of the Pacific they encounter a drifting boat that seems to be taking on water. A man, Hughie Warriner (Zane), rows over to the Ingram's boat for help. He claims that the boat is sinking and that his companions have all died of food poisoning.

Suspicious of Hughie's story, John rows over to the other ship, leaving Rae alone with Hughie. Inside, John discovers the mangled corpses of the other passengers and video footage indicating that Hughie may have murdered them in a fit of insanity. John rushes back to his own boat but is too late as Hughie awakes, knocks out Rae and sails their yacht away, leaving John behind.

Dead Calm is a 1963 novel by Charles F. Williams, which was the basis for the unreleased film The Deep (by Orson Welles) and the later film Dead Calm (by Phillip Noyce).

A honeymooning couple, John and Rae Ingram, rescue a young man, Hughie, from a sinking boat who claims to have lost his companions to food poisoning. When John goes to inspect the sinking boat, he discovers the captain, Russ, and another woman, Mrs. Warriner, alive and begging for help. Discovering that John has left, Hughie panics, takes Rae hostage, and begins driving her boat away from the sinking ship.

On board the sinking ship, John learns that Hughie and Mrs. Warriner and Russ and his wife, Mrs. Bellows, were vacationing when Hughie suffered an agoraphobic reaction while diving with Mrs. Bellows and accidentally killed her trying to climb onto her shoulders. The realization of what he'd done resulted in Hughie suffering a psychotic break. Mrs. Warriner further tells John that Hughie, though a gifted artist, has the mind of a child, his emotional growth having been stunted by his overbearing father and a codependent relationship with an inappropriately affectionate mother. On board the Ingram's boat, Rae is able to surmise this herself from Hughie's behavior and assumes the role of a caring mother figure in order to lull him into a false sense of security, while preparing to kill him with a shotgun John has stashed in their room.

Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE (born 14 September 1947) is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III.

He has also had a number of high-profile roles including the lead in Reilly, Ace of Spies, the adult Damien in Omen III: The Final Conflict, Merlin in the miniseries Merlin, Captain Vasily Borodin in The Hunt for Red October, Colonel Geoffrey Brydon in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, and Alistair Stewart in The Piano. In 2007 he played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in Showtime's The Tudors, and in 2012 began a starring role on the FOX drama Alcatraz.

Neill was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the second son of Dermot Neill, a Harrow- and Sandhurst-educated army officer and third-generation New Zealander, and his English wife Priscilla (née Ingham). At the time of Neill's birth, his father was stationed in Northern Ireland, serving with the Irish Guards. The Neills owned Neill and Co., the largest liquor retailers in New Zealand.

Graeme Revell (born 23 October 1955) is a New Zealand film score composer.

Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A. He is relatively unknown to most New Zealanders, despite having worked in the film business for 30 years, compared to fellow Hollywood New Zealanders such as Anna Paquin, Sam Neill and Zoë Bell.

Revell is a classically trained pianist and French horn player, but also graduated from the University of Auckland with degrees in economics and political science. He worked as a regional planner in Australia and Indonesia and as an orderly in an Australian psychiatric hospital. Later, he was a founding member of the industrial music band SPK, playing keyboards and percussion. The SPK single "In Flagrante Delicto" was the basis for his first film score, for Dead Calm, which won him an Australian Film Industry award.

His musical style is very much electronic and computer-based in nature, yet often utilizes classical instruments or entire arrangements for certain pieces, much like his contemporary counterparts Hans Zimmer and Mark Isham. His orchestral scores throughout the years of his career changes, from Bernard Herrmann-like to Ennio Morricone-like. His music is often re-used from movie to movie and in more recent times he has collaborated with other artists on their albums. After the success of his soundtrack on Red Planet where he used the voice of French singer Emma Shapplin to back up and often lead his score, he collaborated with her on her own album Etterna, producing all of her songs. He has recently been interviewed for the independent documentary Finding Kraftland.

Rae Ingram (born 6 December 1974) is an English former footballer. A defender, he played 151 league games in a ten year career in the Football League and Premier League.

He began his career at Manchester City in July 1993, and made 21 appearances over the next five years. He was loaned out to Macclesfield Town in March 1993, and helped the "Silkmen" to promotion out of the Third Division in 1997–98. He joined the club permanently in July 1998, before he moved on to Port Vale in June 2001. He left Vale Park in May 2003, and spent one season in the Welsh Premier League with Bangor City, before announcing his retirement. He later became a firefighter.

Ingram started his career at Manchester City, signing professional forms at Maine Road in July 1993 under Brian Horton's stewardship. After battles against relegation in 1993–94 and 1994–95, the "Sky Blues" lost their Premier League status in 1995–96 under Alan Ball. Ingram made his debut on 30 August 1995, in a 2–0 home defeat to Everton, and played four further top-flight games during the campaign. A centre-half, he was forced to play out of position at left-back due to a lack of specialist full-backs at the club. He featured 22 times in 1996–97, finding a first team place from January onwards under new boss Frank Clark (who replaced short-term appointment Steve Coppell). He fell out of the first team picture though in 1997–98, and finished the season on loan at Macclesfield Town, after recovering from a bout of ME. He made five league appearances for Sammy McIlroy's "Silkmen", helping the club to finish as runners-up of the Third Division, and went to Moss Rose permanently in July 1998 on a free transfer. Ingram made 34 appearances, but could not prevent the club from finishing bottom of the Second Division in 1998–99. He played 39 times in 1999–2000 and 36 times in 2000–01. He scored his first and only senior goal on 14 October 2000, in a 2–1 home win over Cheltenham Town.