EVENT HORIZON is a cool blend of Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING and Ridley Scott’s ALIEN. The set pieces are beautiful, and detailed in nature, while the ships haunting presence is eerie, and often visually grotesque. It may be easy to label EVENT HORIZON somewhat of a replicate picture, it is not however, easy to dismiss it as a poorly made, or bad film; it is in fact an excellent modern ghost story with influential roots that run over 30 years deep.
The year is 2047, when rescue vessel “Lewis And Clark” are dispatched to intercept the ship “Event Horizon”, which vanished seven years ago, and somehow, has resurfacd. The crews task is to uncover the Event Horizon’s whereabouts, recover any living passengers, and salvage The Event Horizon, if deemed worthy. Along with the standard crew consisting of Captain (Laurence Fishburne) Miller, the medical technician Peters (Kathleen Quinlan), Lieutenant (Joely Richardson) Starck, Cooper (Richard T. Jones), Justin (Jack Noseworthy), D.J (Jason Isaacs), and Smith (Sean Pertwee) the crew is blessed with the guest Doctor, and Event Horizon creator William (Sam Neill) Weir.
After boarding the Event Horizon the crew immediately recognizes foul play, as there are no surviving members on board. Rather, there’s a whole lot of gooey internal organs, flesh, bone chunks and God knows what else cluttering the ship. Furthermore, the members of the Lewis And Clark are beginning to experience perverse, and personal hallucinations. What begins as an extreme mind-fuck escalates into a physical showdown with a ship that has many demons to unleash, and more casualties to claim.
Laurance Fishburne seems to relish in morbid, but commanding and powerful roles. His demeanor in EVENT HORIZON is sharp, and concise, but the cool level headed wisdom that made his work in the MATRIX films so memorable is present in EVENT as well. The lovely Kathleen Quinlan provides a powerful, yet sympathetic performance, while Richard T. Jones, Jack Noseworthy and Jason Isaacs all provide convincingly frantic performances. I’ve got to give the nod where the nod is deserved however; Sam Neill steals this picture. His obsession his evil creation leads to a complete physical and mental collapse that is nothing short of frightening.
Kudos must be distributed for some astounding visuals, and great graphic gore. It required quite a team to manage the effects of this picture, and their work should not go unnoticed, after all – though the viewers psyche is a clear target, the visual effects leave an equally lasting impression on the viewer.
Much to my confusion, this picture seems to invite some unwarranted criticism. There are imperfections in the film, sure. But tell me, how many films are genuinely perfect? EVENT HORIZON is far from a bad picture, in fact it’s more than not just a bad film, it’s actually a disquieting, near masterpiece that deserves far more praise than aspersion.
KEY CHARACTERS:
DR. WILLIAM WEIR – An extremely frightening villain. Sam Neill’s often emotionless approach to savagery is truly something to see.
CAPTAIN MILLER – The Captain, the hero, the most logical thinking victim in this game of Earth Versus Hell – Miller is an easy one to root for!
COOPER – The comedy relief of the film – a fine job Mr. Jones!
OVERALL SUMMARY
For a chilling cross between your standard haunting film and Aliens, this is the way to go. It’s also one of the few horror films out there that demand constant replay!
