Event Horizon (1997)

reviewed by
Scott Renshaw


EVENT HORIZON (Paramount) Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones. Screenplay: Philip Eisner. Producers: Jeremy Bolt, Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin. Director: Paul Anderson. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, violence, gore, adult themes, brief nudity) Running Time: 95 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

Give this to the makers of EVENT HORIZON: as wholesale rip-offs of ALIEN go, this one is remarkably thorough. With the assistance of copious captions, we learn that it involves a small space ship crew, headed by laconic Captain Joe Miller (Laurence Fishburne), which is sent on a somewhat mysterious search-and-rescue operation. When one advance team member returns to the ship in a catatonic state, the rest of the crew begins worrying...and, shortly thereafter, begins dying. To make matters worse, one member of the crew may be working for the other side. The only chance for the surviving member(s) of the crew is to blow up one part of the ship while using the rest as an escape pod, going into hyper-sleep and waiting for a rescue. Only a computer named Mother and a cat named Jonesy are missing to complete the picture

The original twist to that familiar scenario -- and where EVENT HORIZON is concerned, "original" is used advisedly -- is that the object of the search and rescue operation is the Event Horizon, a prototype spacecraft created by Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill) with the ability to bend space-time for the purpose of deep-space travel. Unfortunately, instead of travelling to another galaxy, the Event Horizon appears to have travelled to another dimension, one inhabited by a chaotic life force which drives people mad with intense, hallucinatory visions. In that sense, the malevolent entity a bit more efficient than the predatory stowaway of ALIEN -- instead of tearing out your organs, it makes you want to tear them out yourself, or tear out those of your fellow crew members.

EVENT HORIZON, on the other hand, is not nearly so efficient. ALIEN grabbed its viewers with one graphic, horrific moment and a whole lot of creepy atmosphers; EVENT HORIZON counters with a little creepy atmosphere and a whole lot of graphic, horrific moments. Not a single violent image is left to the imagination, not when special effects can render a character coughing up blood in zero gravity, or a body ripped open and hung like a side of beef. There are certainly a few scares in EVENT HORIZON, but director Paul Anderson (MORTAL KOMBAT) rarely earns them. Give me a roll of film, a dark room, a scary mask and a burst of dissonant strings, and even I could get an audience to jump every time. EVENT HORIZON doesn't build a sense of dread, because it's easier to settle for shock and disgust.

The truly disappointing thing about Philip Eisner's script is that, for a while, it looks like it's headed somewhere interesting. The idea of characters defeated by their own demons is infinitely more compelling than characters defeated by real demons, which gives EVENT HROIZON a creepy tension while there's still some mystery about what's going on. But Eisner doesn't follow through on enough of his characters' dark secrets; whenever someone doesn't have a closeted skeleton to rattle, he just throws a bucket of blood at them. Even when he does follow up on a character's motivations, they end up making very little sense. Weir's motivations in particular -- which initially seem perfectly logical -- disintegrate near the film's climax, right about the time EVENT HORIZON becomes a parade of explosions, slow-motion and lovingly photographed corpses.

EVENT HORIZON boasts some genuinely impressive technical credits, including imaginative production design by Joseph Bennett, but that doesn't explain what a cast this talented saw in this project. ALIEN was the kind of memorable film which launched careers. EVENT HORIZON is the kind of re-cycled nonsense which can end careers. Remember, in space, no one can hear you scream, but in a movie theater, you can hear everyone groan.

     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 lost horizons:  3.

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