The 1997 iconic horror sci fi film Event Horizon is, in essence, a story about a haunted house in space. It is bloody terrifying.
Helmed by the English director Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, AVP: Alien vs Predator, Death Race) Event Horizon is a nightmare inducing ride through a celestial haunted house.
Amazingly this ‘space screamer’ was penned by Philip Eisner after he initially ‘pitched’ the idea to the studio money men on a film he referred to as “The Shining in space.” He was given the go ahead, although he had not written one word on a plot. It turned out incredibly well, despite it’s ‘shaky start.’
Blessed with an amazing cast: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs, and my personal favourite Sean Pertwee and a good multi-written script, the film has no problem selling us the idea of a haunted spaceship. Although, I personally would have loved to see the original 130 minute film before Anderson had to trim twenty minutes of the more spectacular violence out.
The story
It is 2047. The crew of the ‘Lewis and Clark’ have been tasked to answer a distress beacon that seems to be coming from another ship, the ‘Event Horizon’ that vanished seven years preciously. A scientist, Dr Weir, has been tasked to join the crew because he was the man who was behind the technology of the Event Horizon.
The crew find out that the Event Horizon was capable of creating it’s own black hole. This black hole would enable the ship to travel to the furthest reaches of space. Unfortunately, the first time that Event Horizon used the black hole device, the entire ship and it’s crew vanished. The distress beacon indicates that the Event Horizon has re-appeared.
When the crew find the Event Horizon and board it, they find out that the distress beacon was actually a warning. They also find a ships video log. They fix it so they can see what happened prior to the ships disappearance. The crew and Dr Weir are trying to piece together what happened. They all start experiencing things. They soon find out the wherever the ship went, the furthest reaches of space was not where it wound up. The ship has returned and brought something terrible with it.
The verdict
This film can almost literally scare the crap out of you. Taking metaphorical pages from Solaris, Legend of Hell House, and yes, even The Shining the film works incredibly well. There are a few glaring plot holes. Although to be fair these seem to be the result of the studio enforced editing. The aim was to remove some of the gorier scenes. The end result was to lower the film rating. some of the FX is pretty dated but, the film still has the ability to creep around in your head long after you’ve watched it.
This is a 5 star serving of terror. It is currently streaming on MGM plus.
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