The future: the top secret experimental spacecraft Event Horizon has reappeared after mysteriously vanishing on its maiden voyage a few years ago. It was testing a new engine that enabled it to travel faster than light by slipping into another dimension as a shortcut to its destination - could this have been the reason that, as the crew of the rescue vessel Lewis and Clark discover, no one is left aboard the Event Horizon? If so, what happened - and will it happen again?
This sci-fi shocker, written by Philip Eisner, is one of those films that give you a sense of deja-vu even if you've never seen it before. Essentially a haunted house story in space, the doomed Event Horizon is drifting in the upper atmosphere of Neptune, which renders the effect of a dark and stormy night all around, complete with thunder and lightning. Nothing really shakes that derivative feeling while you're watching it, but the good cast make it acceptable.
The ship is alive with evil, in the manner of the hotel in The Shining, and also makes the crew of the rescue mission suffer hallucinations. The crew are similar to the one in Alien, and in the same way are picked off one by one in nasty ways. The Event Horizon creates its own black hole to travel, which apparently leads to Hell itself, just like in the movie, yes, The Black Hole ("The most destructive force in the Universe," as one character echoes). The results of the haunted ship may remind you of Hellraiser... and so on.
The characters' hallucinations, at least the ones we see, are connected to the guilt they feel about their lives, so Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) is tormented by leaving a crewmate to die in an accident some years before, and Weir (Sam Neill), the architect of the ship's engine, can't get over the suicide of his wife. Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) seems to be guilty about leaving her disabled son only for a direct copy of the "Donald Sutherland chasing about Venice" sequences of Don't Look Now.
The humans are being punished, not only to exploit their consciences, but for going too far - yes, they've meddled in things Man was not meant to meddle with. By acting like Godlike beings and achieving the impossible, they are facing the consequences of an infernal wrath and being sent to Hell. While the film is great to look at, with its intricate production design conjuring images of tombs and crucifixes, and there is no extraneous plotting such as romance to bog things down, there really aren't any surprises here (other than the cliché shock cuts and sudden noises, of course). Music by Michael Kamen and Orbital.
British director who specialises in noisy, flashy sci-fi action. Made his debut in 1994 with the ram-raiding thriller Shopping, and scored his biggest critical success in 1997 with the scary space shocker Event Horizon. Anderson's Kurt Russell vehicle Soldier was a costly flop, but his computer game adaptations Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil proved more entertaining than they probably should have done. His Alien Vs. Predator was a hit, but was controversial amongst fans of the two franchises. Not to be confused with Magnolia director Paul Thomas Anderson.
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