Event Horizon Review (1997) Worth Watching?

It's about a rescue team launched into deep space to salvage what's left of a space ship that mysteriously went off the grid.

Event Horizon was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (who also directed Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Afterlife and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter) and stars Laurence Fishburne (from The Colony, Contagion), Sam Neill (from Daybreakers, Dead Calm) and Kathleen Quinlan (from The Hills Have Eyes, Trapped).

FCK THIS SHIP!*

Event Horizon is a bizarrely fantastic horror Sci-Fi flick, it's a cult classic for a reason. If you haven't seen it, imagine a movie where The Shining takes place aboard the ship in Alien that summons Cenobites from Hellraiser who party by throwing gory orgies (gorgies?) that make Baskin look like Basket Case .

That's a lot of horror influences, I know. But I'm not exaggerating. Event Horizon was panned back in '97 when it was first released for ripping off so many other popular movies (the list actually goes on to include 2001: A Space Odyssey and others).

But part of what makes Event Horizon so cool is that it cobbles together bits 'n pieces from all these horror greats. It's not just a space sci-fi, it's also a supernatural super gory body horror . And it's not completely unoriginal, the antagonist in Event Horizon is the empty ship itself. The how, what and why is the mystery revealed in the plot.

It's a gripping movie and has more than enough horror to solidify it in the genre. The same can't always be said for other pseudo horrors like Life or Pitch Black . And despite the fact Event Horizon didn't exactly nail the future well (in the year 2047 they still stored all their data on CD-Roms and smoked cigarettes) it did nail its special effects, both CGI and practical. It's a very effective blend.

Casting was fantastic as well. Lawrence Fishburne was perfect as the role of captain (of course I couldn't help but see him as Morpheus, the ship captain in Matrix) and Sam Neill crushed his role as a maniacally unstable villain. The rest of the crew were okay, but hey, you don't want to get too attached to all the throwaways who will inevitably all be killed off by the many dangers of space, and torn open hellish dimensional gateways.

Get ready!