A completely underrated sci-fi horror movie, Event Horizon scared the shit out of me when I was teen seeing this in the theater. Now you might be wondering what a teen was doing in a theater seeing an R-rated horror movie, well it back in the days when people didn’t give a fuck about what kids were and were not able to see. Sigh, those were the days.
I love me a space horror and Event Horizon brought this eerie feeling of uneasiness about the isolation of space and the unknown element of fear among the crew still gives me the chill. But sadly, the film was panned all around by critics, but those of us cinephiles managed to looks beyond the horizon and saw a truly, cerebral and terrifying film.
Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill) is a scientist who has designed a spacecraft called Event Horizon which will explore the outer reaches of space past the planet Neptune; the ship employs a special transport mechanism that, in effect, creates a black hole that the ship can pass through, allowing it to travel tremendous distances in a few seconds. The Event Horizon mysteriously disappears in the midst of a mission with no trace of either the ship or its crew, but it reappears in Neptune’s orbit after a seven year absence and it’s sending out a distress signal. The spaceship Lewis and Clark, and Dr. Weir, are sent to investigate; the crew — Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne), pilot Smith (Sean Pertwee), engineer Justin (Jack Noseworthy), navigator Starck (Joely Richardson), physician D.J. (Jason Isaacs), and emergency technicians Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) and Cooper (Richard T. Jones) — are already tired and unenthusiastic about this assignment, and somewhat confused by Weir’s reports. The crew of the Lewis and Clark are convinced that Weir is not telling them something, and when they discover the Event Horizon, they find that things are not what they seem, and an evil presence has taken over the ship. Incidentally, the term “event horizon” describes the outer boundaries of a black hole. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
I have in the past, professed my undying love of science fiction movies and when a director can combine horror elements into these pillars of science fiction themes, it makes for unbelievable movies. Science Fiction in general is a horror genre when one things about it. The idea of the unknown and exploring the vastness of our existence, not knowing what we will find, is a terrifying thing to think about. So space itself makes for a perfect horror movie setting, sometimes, cause I mean Jason X was set in space and that was terribly bad, but good. This desolate location of the edge of space only compounds the terror and madness, since the crew and the people on board are the far from a safe location of civilization. That is what I love, the feeling of helpless terror and isolation, far from help and the only refuge is the ship itself.
One of the things that I enjoy most about sci-fi horror movies is ship design. It never ceases to amaze me that these haunted ships look like flying, gothic haunted houses. I mean, you are pretty much setting up your ship to become possessed and blood lusty when you decide make it all chromatic, angular and sharp. It screams uncomfortable from the moment go and I would have not gotten on the Event Horizon when it was built. But the ship design does tend to amplify the gore and horror aspects of movie once it starts to get going after all the science mumbo-jumbo and we get to the part where the ship has apparently been to another dimension which happens to be Hell and then the horrors of deep space come to life. It’s a trip to watch things degenerate into this highlight reel of the demons best horror decorations and watching the crew being psychologically picked apart and offed in horrific ways. It is the perfect combination of mood, setting, set design and the aspects of being in space with no hope for immediate help.
This is still one of the better, underrated sci-fi horror movies out there. I have read a lot of the reviews about this movie and I get where people are coming from that you are getting two incomplete movies crammed into one. I can appreciate both aspects of the movie where you are getting an intriguing, science fiction mystery with some good science thrown. Then you have the other side of the movie where it turns into a living nightmare and the movie loses a bit of the science fiction edge. The buckets of blood, viscera, and gore itself might sate those needing that horror edge more than a scary science fiction discovery film, so there is that divide. But I will give Paul W.S. Anderson some credit for his attempt here. He gets a lot of crap for making these template movies like Resident Evil, but then again I can’t fault the guy for wanting to put Mila in revealing outfits or buckly looking corsets. I am a simple man sometimes. His attempt, with a stellar cast including Sam Neil and Laurence Fishburne, at making a cerebral and unreal setting for a horror movie works for me. It’s simple, but scary and it maintains this heightened feeling of helplessness throughout the entire movie and the setting itself works so well.
