I remember back in the early 90's when Elite Entertainment was the shit as far as genre releases went. This was back in the pre-DVD days when genre fans had to look to laserdiscs for editions of some of their favorite films and when we used to look forward to what was going to be released by this small label. They were the first to put out special editions of classics like Re-Animator, Maniac, and Night of the Living Dead and I recall when the release of a new Elite laserdisc was a big event. Times have sure changed and ever since Don May left the label to form Synapse Films, things have gone downhill for Elite. There have been a few moments of hope with a Millennium Edition of I Spit On Your Grave and the first Aussie film collection but the decent releases from this company are getting lost in a sea of crappy transfers and boring films. When I picked up the second Aussie Horror collection, I was excited but if the quality of this film and the transfer are any indication of what the rest of this set is like, there is not much to look forward to.

Voyage Into Fear is one of those movies that you wish would end pretty much as soon as the opening credits have rolled. I quickly realized that the structure of the film was going to be a series of flashbacks and dream sequences jumping in and out of reality. This wore out its welcome within minutes. When a scene with an annoying red-headed kid bouncing a red ball came on the screen, I was reaching for a magazine on my coffee table to try to pass the time while I gathered what I could from the plot.

Kate Raison stars as Madaline Carr, a woman who is plagued with nightmares and visions of her dead brother that have been haunting her since an accident many years ago. After a series of nightmares, she travels to her childhood home with her husband to try to unravel the mysteries of what happened in her youth. About halfway through the film, their car breaks down in the forest and the hubby (Martin Sacks) heads off to find help while the slightly psychotic Madaline is left in the car to wait. Eventually night falls and Madaline is taken in by a weird man (Martin Vaughan) who lives in a cabin in the woods where she waits for her husband and has a shower. It is here that the movie switches gears and tries to become a "woman trapped in a house" movie that is an awkward change of pace that makes the movie feel even more confused than it already is. At least the flashbacks of the annoying younger brother settled down as did my desire to smack the television. Everything eventually leads to an unsatisfying conclusion that left me wondering why Elite would choose to release this sedative.

Director Murray Fahey has given us a talky, uninspired mess of a movie that doesn't seem to have any idea of what it wants to be. All of the actors look extremely bored and there is not blood, sex, action, or suspense of any kind. It all just feels like a big waste of time and I was actually getting kind of angry by the time the end credits rolled. Don't bother with this one and if you are looking for something suspenseful from down under you would be better served by checking out Peter Weir's Picnic At Hanging Rock or something from Elite's initial batch of Australian horror films. Surely, the folks at Elite could have found something better than this for the second set. Maybe they should have included Razorback instead if this was the best they could find. (Josh Pasnak, 7/2/07)

Directed By: Murray Fahey.
Written By: Murray Fahey.

Starring: Kate Raison, Martin Sacks, Martin Vaughan, Maggie Kirkpatrick.

aka: Encounters.

Picture Ratio: Full Frame.

Picture Quality: This is a terrible transfer that looks like it came from a used VHS tape. It is dark and grainy and ends up making a bad movie a lot worse.

Extras: Thankfully all we get is a trailer with a voiceover that says the movie's original title and a useless five question trivia game that I failed. I guess I wasn't paying attention.