Event Horizon

Event Horizon

1997

Director- Paul W.S. Anderson

Cast- Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neil, Joey Richardson, Jason Isaacs, Richard T. Jones, Sam Pertwee, Kathleen Quinlan, Jason Noseworthy

           

This filmed bombed in the box office but I have to assume it was marketed to the wrong audience as this is a very effective horror film. And make no mistake, it is horror. Though it has a science fiction setting, there is only enough sci-fi to move the plot along.

            Event Horizon has an  impressive genre bona fides.  Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil) with Lawrence Fishburn (The Matrix) Sam Neil (Jurassic Park) Jason Isaccs (Harry Potter franchise) and Sam Pertwee (Dog Soldiers).

            The film asks a question similar to Prince of Darkness, that is, what if Hell is not a spiritual concept but an actual physical reality?

Dr. Weir (Sam Neil) has built a ship, The Event Horizon, capable of bending space in order to circumvent the limitations of the speed of light. But when the ship activated its warp drive, it disappeared, only to reappear seven years later. Enter Captain Miller (Fishburne) and his crew, tasked with escorting Weir to the lost ship and rescuing any survivors.

The ship’s crew is gone and it becomes quickly apparent that something horrible has happened to them. As the story unfolds, it is surmised that The Event Horizon had went to some other dimension, one of chaos and evil. The ship’s log leaves an ominous warning from its last captain: “liberate tutame ex inferis” or save yourself from hell!

The ship now seems to have its own evil intelligence and it goes to work on the new crew by exploiting their personal fears and guilt and engineering various deaths.

The film has an aesthetic similar to Aliens with environments that seem more familiar than futuristic. The setting is technically not in space but in Neptune’s ionosphere, which allows for things like thunder and lightning apparently. The demonic imagery seems to borrow from Hellraiser with lots of self-mutilation and ritual symbolism. Of special note is the ship’s drive core; a series of intricately detailed rings rotating around each other in a hypnotic rhythm. It has a cold beauty similar to the puzzle boxes in Hellraiser.

The film doesn’t have any of the originality of the various films it seems to borrow from, but it does combine these disparate elements effectively.