I admit, Event Horizon has long been a hole in my knowledge of horror movies. I’ve known that it was something that I should have seen by now, and I can finally say that I have seen it.
Normally I wouldn’t just quote the movie verbatim, but as to not spoil too much, and because I think it does a good enough job of setting things up, I will this time. Here is the timeline as spelled out by the first few minutes of the film.
2015 – First Permanent Colony Established On Moon.
2032 – Commercial Mining Begins On Mars.
2040 – Deep Space Research Vessel ‘Even Horizon’ Launched To Explore Boundaries Of Solar System.
2040 – ‘Event Horizon’ Disappears Without Trace Beyond The Eighth Planet, Neptune. Considered Worst Space Disaster On Record.
2047 – [Current] The ‘Lewis and Clark’ Is Dispatched On A Top Secret Mission [Search & Rescue] The Sudden Reappearance Of The ‘Event Horizon’.
Onboard the Lewis and Clark the Captain and their crew are informed that they are on a high-level secret mission to find out why the Event Horizon reappeared after 7 years, and where it has been for that amount of time. The crew finds it hard to believe that they are on such a mission as they (and assuming everyone else) were told that the Event Horizon was destroyed, and the crew lost. Along with the regular crew of the L&C is Doctor William Weir, the man responsible for building the Event Horizon. He has a vested interest in getting all the information he is able to out of this mission.
No sooner than the ship is found, things take a very dark turn. Something on the Event Horizon has gone terribly wrong. The crew is mostly gone and the only member they find is in bad shape. As the member of the Lewis and Clark investigate further one of their team is involved in a mysterious situation that only makes the ship more mysterious and dangerous. More members are affected, and it quickly becomes apparent that they themselves will need rescuing soon if they do not abandon the mission and leave. Unfortunately, someone or something doesn’t want to allow this to happen.
I’ll just be upfront with this review; I loved this movie. As I wrote earlier it is almost embarrassing that it took me this long to watch it. Hell, I even own the damn thing and haven’t watched it until today. It is when boiled down to its barest ingredients, Hellraiser in space. I realize that is very reductive, but it’s likely the easiest way to describe the film to someone that has seen Hellraiser (obviously) but not Event Horizon.
Event Horizon in some ways made me realize thy I enjoyed the first few Dead Space games. Without looking it up, they may have even been inspired by the movie. Lots of interstellar mystery, macabre imagery, not to mention some existential dread. There is little that I can find wrong with the film. The cast, the writing, direction, (most of) the special effects, it all works well to complete the overall package. I cannot recommend this movie enough. Especially to the folks out there that enjoy good horror and have never seen it.
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