Event Horizon
Year: 1997
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson
Starring: Lawrence Fishburne & Sam Neill
Runtime: 96 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 26/10/23
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson
Starring: Lawrence Fishburne & Sam Neill
Runtime: 96 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 26/10/23
The Dead Space games are some of my favourite horror games of all time, and it’s understandable why when you consider that one of the biggest inspirations for the first game was one of my favourite horror films, Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic, Alien. However, there is another big film inspiration for Dead Space, one that’s not talked about anywhere near as often because of its much smaller fanbase and cult status. Event Horizon was the subject of major studio interference in the late stages of production and ultimately the film suffered at the box office and with critics. Regardless I am a big fan of the film and what director Paul W. S. Anderson was trying to achieve.
The year is 2047 and the search and rescue ship Lewis and Clarke is sent on a mission to search for the Event Horizon, a ship that mysteriously went missing seven years prior which has recently resurfaced in orbit around Neptune.
The mission is spearheaded by Dr. Weir (Sam Neill), designer of the Event Horizon, whilst the crew of the Lewis and Clarke report to Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne). But when the crew board the ship they find more than they bargained for, as they soon begin to lose their minds, turn on each other, and realise that hell was unleashed on the Event Horizon.
The year is 2047 and the search and rescue ship Lewis and Clarke is sent on a mission to search for the Event Horizon, a ship that mysteriously went missing seven years prior which has recently resurfaced in orbit around Neptune.
The mission is spearheaded by Dr. Weir (Sam Neill), designer of the Event Horizon, whilst the crew of the Lewis and Clarke report to Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne). But when the crew board the ship they find more than they bargained for, as they soon begin to lose their minds, turn on each other, and realise that hell was unleashed on the Event Horizon.
If you’ve played the Dead Space games, it’s easy to see where the inspiration came from with Event Horizon. A rescue crew sent to investigate a missing ship, only to find terror beyond their wildest imaginations on board.
There’s no hiding it, Event Horizon is kind of a bad film, but I admit I love it regardless. The writing is borderline B-Movie material, and the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. But there are a few areas where Event Horizon truly excels and had promise to be a truly great sci-fi horror.
First of all, the world building here is pretty impressive for a film that is isolated to a single environment. There’s a lot of talk about the impact that the Event Horizon going missing had on space travel, as well as massive amounts of detail given to the Event Horizon’s gravity drive, how it works and why it may be the root of the problem.
The setup of the film is perfectly paced and does a great job of setting the scene because of this time dedicated to the world building. It feels almost as good as the setup to Alien, and you can clearly see the parallels it draws to that film.
Then comes the actual horror, and Event Horizon delivers some pretty gnarly and twisted scares despite having the majority of its really nasty content cut out by Paramount. The film absolutely would have benefitted from the longer runtime and added gore though, trimmed back from two-hours and ten-minutes to nintey-six is a lot of stuff to lose, and it’s hard to say that its absence isn’t felt. Anderson has worked around it as much as possible, and he still delivers, but what could have been is just so tantalising.
I’m not keen on the ending though. It feels like it just abruptly stops, and that might have been down to the cuts that were made, but after that kind of ambiguous final jump scare, I feel there needs to be a bit more of an ending, or even a sequel to explain what happened.
There’s no hiding it, Event Horizon is kind of a bad film, but I admit I love it regardless. The writing is borderline B-Movie material, and the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. But there are a few areas where Event Horizon truly excels and had promise to be a truly great sci-fi horror.
First of all, the world building here is pretty impressive for a film that is isolated to a single environment. There’s a lot of talk about the impact that the Event Horizon going missing had on space travel, as well as massive amounts of detail given to the Event Horizon’s gravity drive, how it works and why it may be the root of the problem.
The setup of the film is perfectly paced and does a great job of setting the scene because of this time dedicated to the world building. It feels almost as good as the setup to Alien, and you can clearly see the parallels it draws to that film.
Then comes the actual horror, and Event Horizon delivers some pretty gnarly and twisted scares despite having the majority of its really nasty content cut out by Paramount. The film absolutely would have benefitted from the longer runtime and added gore though, trimmed back from two-hours and ten-minutes to nintey-six is a lot of stuff to lose, and it’s hard to say that its absence isn’t felt. Anderson has worked around it as much as possible, and he still delivers, but what could have been is just so tantalising.
I’m not keen on the ending though. It feels like it just abruptly stops, and that might have been down to the cuts that were made, but after that kind of ambiguous final jump scare, I feel there needs to be a bit more of an ending, or even a sequel to explain what happened.
Neill and Fishburne both deliver great performances, and they also get the strongest dialogue which helps. Neill in particular really gets to shine in the final act once his character descends into madness.
The only character and performance I would say doesn’t fit in that well is Cooper (Richard T. Jones); reason being that despite the whole film having a slightly campy and B-Movie edge to it, Cooper is played entirely for laughs. Nothing that comes out of his mouth can be taken seriously, and every situation he’s put in is outrageously stupid. He has the worst scene in the whole film because of this, where he flies back into Neptune’s orbit using his air supply. It’s made all the worse because of the film’s rather ropey CGI, but just his entire character is a write off and this scene in particular is awful.
I’ll admit that Event Horizon is not a great film, but I do have a great time with it and that’s what really matters. I love what was done with the story and I feel like the original version of the film would have fixed most of the problems I have with it, as well as added in a lot more gory moments which would have been very welcome.
It probably wouldn’t have fixed the bad dialogue, the rubbish CGI, and Cooper’s entire character, but I can deal with those in the grand scheme of things, and they aren't a deal breaker by any stretch.
I’d love to see Event Horizon given another shot at the big time, or for the deleted footage to be miraculously found. But it went on to inspire Dead Space, and really that’s about the best thing you could possibly get from this.
The only character and performance I would say doesn’t fit in that well is Cooper (Richard T. Jones); reason being that despite the whole film having a slightly campy and B-Movie edge to it, Cooper is played entirely for laughs. Nothing that comes out of his mouth can be taken seriously, and every situation he’s put in is outrageously stupid. He has the worst scene in the whole film because of this, where he flies back into Neptune’s orbit using his air supply. It’s made all the worse because of the film’s rather ropey CGI, but just his entire character is a write off and this scene in particular is awful.
I’ll admit that Event Horizon is not a great film, but I do have a great time with it and that’s what really matters. I love what was done with the story and I feel like the original version of the film would have fixed most of the problems I have with it, as well as added in a lot more gory moments which would have been very welcome.
It probably wouldn’t have fixed the bad dialogue, the rubbish CGI, and Cooper’s entire character, but I can deal with those in the grand scheme of things, and they aren't a deal breaker by any stretch.
I’d love to see Event Horizon given another shot at the big time, or for the deleted footage to be miraculously found. But it went on to inspire Dead Space, and really that’s about the best thing you could possibly get from this.