Although these are among the reasons the movie is well-regarded by many now, Event Horizon owes just as much if not more of its legacy to it being poorly received upon its initial release. Weir (Sam Neill) into a murderous maniac who wants to bring the surviving crew back to the hell dimension. How this actually functions is left to interpretation, but the Event Horizon (the ship, not the movie) appears to have some kind of a consciousness that allows it to instill nightmarish visions in the people on-board, and turns Dr. Event Horizon has a recognizable mold, but it was the first major follow-up to Alien that wasn’t actually part of the Alien franchise in eighteen years.Įvent Horizon also stood out because of what its threat actually is: not an alien monster chasing the crew around the ship, but the ship itself, which has been affected by a trip to another dimension that, if not the literal hell, is analogous enough to it. The only other big budget example from that era is Tobe Hooper’s 1985 space vampire film Lifeforce, yet even that film is only in space for a short time, with most of the action set on Earth. The template for that type of movie was firmly codified in 1979 by Alien, but aside from Alien’s own sequels, horror films actually set in space (not horror films with alien antagonists set on Earth, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or John Carpenter’s The Thing) tended to be cheaply produced and not widely seen Alien knock-offs like Galaxy of Terror in 1981 or Creature in 1985. While the conventions of a story about a crew trapped on a starship and getting slaughtered by some kind of cosmic terror are common knowledge, it’s important to remember that such movies were not common themselves. With a reported $60 million budget and the backing of a major studio like Paramount, it was also one of the only space horror movies that had significant production value at the time. Whatever Event Horizon’s issues are in script and tone, it delivers where it counts in the areas that help turn initially disregarded genre fare into home viewing staples. The gore effects and horror sequences are so memorable that a (sadly impossible) hypothetical director’s cut has been discussed by film fans for a quarter of a century. Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill bring a ton of credibility to the proceedings in fun, pulpy roles. The gothic architecture of the titular ship’s design is haunting and evocative. This scene is a reminder of what Anderson's truly capable of when in the right mood.Event Horizon isn’t a perfect movie, but the elements that have instilled affection for it in the hearts of sci-fi horror fans tend to be the ones that are easily visible. Anderson's always had an eye for the genre, despite his love of horror-action popcorn flicks. The "Captain's Log" is such a glorious precursor to an exemplary interstellar frightener, filled with horrors meant for sadomasochistic nightmares. "Event Horizon" manages to disgust and traumatize in a matter of seconds, and that's just a nauseating taste. We all know Anderson as the blockbuster filmmaker who loves his video game adaptations, but "Event Horizon" is a sickeningly unsettling example of cosmic horror. There's no hiding from the sodomy and torn-out eyeballs. There's an element of suspense that Anderson doesn't need because he'd rather us know and fear the horrors aboard Event Horizon. So often, inspecting characters will roll a past crew's recordings only for an abrupt ending before we can distinguish what went haywire. It's a functionally alarming manipulation of "Captain's Log" storytelling that keeps all the worst yet to come in full view.
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