Event Horizon is Futuristic Sci-Fi Horror that Defines 'Creepy'
Event Horizon foreshadows the consequences of exploration into places where man should perhaps not be.
Written by BHM Contributor Dr. Chills
September 30, 2008
Release: 1997
Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson
Written by: Phillip Eisner
Starring:
Laurence Fishburne as Captain Miller
Sam Neill as Dr. William Weir
Kathleen Quinlan as Peters, Med Tech
Joely Richardson as Lt. Starck
Richard T. Jones as Cooper
Jason Isaacs as DJ
One word comes to mind when I think of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon – Creepy. It’s one of the creepiest flicks I’ve seen since the watching Gore Verbinski’s The Ring. And just what makes this futuristic, sci-fi horror flick so creepy… I think it has something to do with the fact that a ship, a mechanical and spiritless machine has become possessed by a devil.
The story opens up with a typed caption informing the viewers that a ship called the Event Horizon had gone missing in the year 2040. Seven years later in 2047, a space station receives a distress call from the ship, a vessel that for all intents and purposes was assumed to have exploded. The secret truth is that the technological elite secretly knew that the ship was not destroyed but had disappeared. It seems those on board were experimenting with time travel and the folding of the space / time continuum.
Laurence Fishburne, playing the handsome Captain Miller, leads a rescue crew of rag tag mavericks along with the builder and architect of the fated Event Horizon, Dr. William Weir to investigate the distress call.
It is important to note that ‘Event Horizon’ is not just a really cool name for a spaceship or a catchy title for a Hollywood film. It is an actual astronomical term referring to a Black Hole, or more specifically, the area surrounding a Black Hole. The properties of an Event Horizon are such that no light, sound, action, thought, or deed can survive the pull and power of the Event. Basically – roaches check in, but they don’t check out… But what if the roaches do check out? What if what happens in Vegas doesn’t just stay in Vegas? All hell breaks loose and I do mean that literally.
What’s comforting about the future is that people still make the sign of the cross to reassure themselves in times of danger. That crew needs all the help they can get for they are battling against forces of darkness who have crossed over a spiritual and cosmic divide and who want nothing less then total destruction and domination.
When the distress call comes to the space station, it comes in the form of an obscured mish-mosh of verbalizations, alien sounds and old world Latin. Fortunately, someone on board knows Latin and it able to decipher the words “Liberate Us.” Well, in the spirit of Lost in Translation, I would humbly say to please make sure you get the translation correct before charging blindly into the unknown. You might also want to exercise more than an ounce of prevention when your scanners are reading no signs of human life, yet the entire ship is reading as if it is alive. Come on. You mean to tell me that by 2047, we haven’t definitively verified the existence of aliens. Forget demons, even if the crew had prepared for your basic stomach implanting, flesh eating aliens they might have fared better than they did against the mind reading demon ship with the uncanny ability to bring to light one’s deepest fears.
At least they had cool guns to fight with. Something else to look forward to in the future are the really amazing weapons. Event Horizon had some really excellent weaponry and some killer fight scenes as well as a satisfying resolution. And in a surprise twist that upsets the usual rules of horror flicks, the brother actually makes it out alive.
But alive for how long? As I write this review, modern day technological elites are running experiments to bend the space time continuum. They want to recreate the conditions of the big bang, by making a black hole in a laboratory. Good luck with that one. Questions or comments about Event Horizon? Discuss it on The Ossuary Forums!
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