A haunted house film set in space. That’s what I thought and then read the same words in a published description of what the writer and director were going for. In that way it was a clear success, but in others it struggles. The premise is good, if jarring. Space travel, which is the most scientific of scientific enterprises (there’s a reason the rest of us say, “I’m not a rocket scientist”) collides with the traditional supernatural. The results are worth pondering. Event Horizon has become a cult classic, and like many older films, has been more positively reevaluated in recent years. So the crew of Lewis and Clark is on a rescue mission to the ship Event Horizon, in a decaying orbit around Neptune. Neptune’s atmosphere provides lightning for this haunted house. The crew learns that Event Horizon has been through a black hole and has returned sentient. Its crew has no survivors and it won’t allow Lewis and Clark to either escape or to destroy it.
Those of us who watch horror looking for religion—and even general viewers—can’t help but notice that Event Horizon ended up in Hell and returned. It plagues the rescue crew with hallucinations of their regrets and failures. Weir, the scientist who designed Event Horizon, is more or less possessed and stops at nothing to save the ship, which has brought Hell back to this dimension. Again, it’s a bit jarring, like vampires in space. (Yes, I know it’s been done.) There’s even a point where Weir informs one of the crew that the crewman doesn’t believe in Hell. Heck, they’re in outer space on a ship technology built. But what if there is a spiritual reality—“dimension,” in the film’s lingo—out there? What if some traditional religions are right?
The movie’s not apologetic, but it’s offering a reminder that to be human is to be spiritual. No matter how much science “proves,” there’s always potentially more “outside.” Hell in Event Horizon is beyond the bounds of the universe. It is another place but a place it is. It costs some of the crew their lives, but does it claim their souls? Event Horizon is one of those movies that the studio ordered severely edited, and for which the edited footage was lost. Movies ever only show us what directors, producers, and studio execs want us to see. People crave stories. And when a movie, like Event Horizon, raises more questions than it answers, viewers want to know—what really does happen in a haunted house in space?
