Due to technical problems I fell behind on the reviews. They all are still coming!)
October 2, 2014
Event Horizon (1997)
Director: Paul Anderson
Writer: Philip Eisner
Starring: Sam Neil, Lawrence Fishburne, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Jack Noseworthy, Jason Isaacs, and Sean Pertwee.
Summary (Spoilers)
Hitting another 90s horror flick I choose this forgotten science fiction horror. Space has been and will always be one of those fearful ideas I think most people have. We are afraid of things we can’t understand and with a lot of space it can be hard to wrap our minds around the concept. Movies have been using space for an element of fear for years. The most famous is the Alien Franchise. So it is no surprise that every so often a new one comes out. This movie failed at the box office and with critics, but did gain a small cult following. It starts out with a quick summary of the past. It talked of the ship Event Horizon that went missing. 7 years later it comes back by Neptune and leaves a distress beacon. The Event Horizon was a new ship with abilities to create a gate that could help them travel over space faster. It is believed to have gone into another dimension. Dr. Weir the man who built the Event Horizon (Sam Neil) joins a rescue team to find the Event Horizon, find any survivors, and figure out where the ship went. The team is led by Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne) who is a strict captain who just wants to get the job finished. A few of the characters are suffering from some traumatic events that effect their mentality. Dr. Weir’s wife committed suicide and he is haunted by dreams of her, Captain Miller still hears the scream of one of his fellow soldiers he left to die years before. Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) has guilt for her crippled son back home. When they arrive to the ship they learn that the ship is reading trace amounts of life forms, but they can’t find any crew except for some gore. They learn that the ship seems to be alive, or possessed and is using the weaknesses of Miller, Weir, and Peters to wear them down. One by one the ship begins tearing the group apart, killing them when possible. Justin (Noseworthy) Gets possessed and tries to commit suicide and barely makes it out. Smith (Pertwee) is blown up, D.J. is mutilated, and Peters falls to her death after trying to help her son during a hallucination. They find a video that shows the last crew mutilate themselves on camera. The longer they stay the worse the situation gets as Dr. Weir becomes possessed and blows up the ship they arrived on to keep them on the Event Horizon so he can take them back to the dimension. He kills anyone who stands in his way. Weir even cuts his eyes out and tries to kill Miller.
Weir gets himself sucked out of the ship and Miller makes the decision to blow up the ship and escape in its escape pod. When he goes to set the bomb off he is attacked by Weir who claims the ship brought him back. Meanwhile the rest of Miller’s crew battle against the ship as it comes to life trying to stop them. Miller is being manhandled by Weir and refuses to let the Event Horizon take the rest of his crew.
He sacrifices himself by detonating the bombs, to destroy the Event Horizon before it takes everyone with them to Hell. The remaining crew members are rescued 72 days later while they were in Stasis a rescue team finds them.
The Good
The movie had tons of potential to be really scary. It did have its creepy moments and I do enjoy the cast pretty well. Sam Neil is very scary playing a bad guy and he nails it better than some other villains. Most of the scares come from graphic images that we see. The movie had a very Stanley Kubrick feel. Many can compare it to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I feel it’s more like The Shining in space.
The Bad
To start I have never liked Paul W.S. Anderson as a director. He ruined my favorite video game series. (Resident Evil) So I was skeptical from the start. Some of the scenes should have been redone and some of the dialogue is really cheesy. I do not understand why they did the whole Peter’s kid scenario since she played little to no part of the movie and trying to save a hallucination of her son seemed too stupid for her to actually believe the boy to be real. I didn’t have a good feel of the other characters and they all seemed generic. Each character should have had a mental weakness that the ships tries to exploit. It would have given better insight and more depth to all of them. The ones who survive should be based on the ones who conquer their weaknesses. Apparently a lot of gory images were cut from the movie fearing that it would be too disturbing, but I feel that at least would have helped the film stay memorable to the audience. I would love to see the original cut of the film (130 minutes compared to 95 minutes.)
If movies like Day of the Dead (1985) can show a man get ripped apart while screaming “Choke on them!” (More on that later) I find it hard to believe that the missing footage is more disturbing than that.
Overall
I liked it, but it could have been better. A movie I really think should be restored to its 130 minutes
(Maybe Not)
or at least have a good remake. (Better Director) 2/5
Fun facts
Anderson turned down X-men to direct Event Horizon. Looking at what’s popular nowadays I think he made a bigger mistake than the Resident Evil franchise.
The original cut of the movie had apparently been lost up till 2012 when one copy of it was found. I hope that a special Blu ray version will be released with the original cut of the movie.
What’s Next?
The new horror film Annabelle (2014)
In The Spider's Web 