EVENT HORIZON Directed by Paul Anderson Starring Sam Neill, Lawrence Fishburne, Joely Richardson
After a long hiatus, The Snapman returns.
Something was missing in this film. Something that would have really screwed me up, as some of the best horror movies have done in the past. The visuals were stunning, the cast talented, the writing decent; so what was missing?
EVENT HORIZON takes place in 2047. The crew of the Search & Rescue ship Lewis & Clark has been sent to the planet Neptune to search for survivors of the Event Horizon, a ship which mysteriously disappeared seven years ago. Dr. Weir (Sam Neill) explains to Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne) and the crew of the Lewis & Clark the secret of the Event Horizon: the gravity drive. The gravity drive creates a black hole which folds two points in space-time close together which are normally very far away. The ship then hops the shortened distance through a "dimensional gateway" and returns space-time to normal. When the Lewis & Clark arrive at the Event Horizon, they find the crew dead and some very disturbing things going on. Apparently the trip brought back something it shouldn't have. Requisite horror movie misadventures ensue.
The dimensional gateway the Event Horizon went through is never really explained in great detail. All you know is that it uses a black hole to create a dimensional gateway. The gateway apparently opened up a hole in our universe to a dimension of pure chaos. Okay, fine, I can deal with that; but why didn't it open a hole up to another universe instead of another dimension? Is there a whole dimension of pure chaos enveloping the universe as we know it? Does traveling through the gateway take you to a specific location, or just a dimension in general? As a techie-type, these are the kind of geeky questions I found myself asking about this story. If the story is going to go as far as explaining the space-time relationship and the folding of space, why doesn't it go as far as to explain the whole enchilada? And another thing: why did the ship come back? Just to get another crew so that they would promptly go back and die horribly in the dimension of hell? Unless Hollywood plans a hundreds EVENT HORIZON sequels to explain all of this, these issue will remain unclear.
EVENT HORIZON relies heavily on its stunning visuals and impressive production design. All of it floored me; I give great kudos to the production crew for some great vision. But the writing is not exactly sure where it wants to go. Regular horror movie gimmicks find their way into a movie that is trying hard to be different from all the others. The idea of a spaceship going to hell and coming back is an interesting one, but this concept is awkwardly executed. This script is not very sure if it is trying to be an ALIEN crew-monster movie (the "evil" of the ship), THE SHINING spook-house movie (instead of the hotel "shining," the ship is "alive"), or a combination of both.
If this movie wants to shock and disturb, it succeeds very well. But it resorts to in-your-face "jolt" scenes, where bursts of sounds and disturbing visuals will hopefully scare you out of your seat. Such a scheme for disturbing the audience only works when there is no sound accompanying the visuals. Otherwise the intent of the filmmakers is too obvious. And the flashes of pure chaos do not seem to be focused on any of the characters in general, just on the audience. The audience gets scared when the characters get scared. It is clear (or should I say, unclear if) the ship is not trying to scare the crew; it's trying to scare the people sitting in the audience in the movie theater.
In ALIEN, the characters were scared to death of the monster running around the ship. In THE SHINING, Jack Torrance was the immediate object to be scared of, but in the end it was the hotel itself to stay away from. In EVENT HORIZON, we are not sure what to be scared of; the ship, the dimensional gateway, the supposed evil behind it all, or what? Great visuals, good special effects, and good acting can't fill in what was missing from this movie: genuine suspense.
THE SNAPMAN
snapman-hhp@juno.com
(Roger Rubio)
--
"Gravity cannot be held responsible for falling in love."
-- Albert Einstein
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