Event Horizon - Hell House in Space!!!!!!!!

Event Horizon
1997
Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson
Written by Philip Eisner
Starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan

Rated R - Approx. 96 Min




Tag Lines:
Infinite Space - Infinite Terror









Alternate Titles:
The Stars My Destination  - USA (working title)
O Enigma do Horizonte  (The Mysterious Horizon)  - Brazil
Event Horizon - Le vaisseau de l'au-delà  (The Ship of the Afterlife) - Canada
Event Horizon - Am Rande des Universums  (On the Edge of the Universe)  - Germany
Horizonte final  (Event Horizon)  - Spain
Den sista horisonten  (The Last Horizon)  - Finland
Viimeinen horisontti  (Event Horizon)  - Finland 
Το σκαφος του τρομου  (His Boat Horror) - Greece
Na rubu horizonta  (At the Edge of the Horizon)  - Croatia
Halálhajó  (Event Horizon)  - Hungary
Punto di non ritorno  (Point of No Return)  - Italy
Ukryty wymiar  (Hidden Dimension)  - Poland
O Enigma do Horizonte  (Puzzle of the Horizon) - Portugal
Destinatie mortala  (Destination Deadly)  - Romania
Konačni horizont  (Finite Horizon)  - Serbia
Na ivici horizonta  (At the Edge of the Horizon)  - Serbia (DVD title)
Сквозь Горизонт  (Through the Horizon)  - Russia
Krvavo obzorje  (Bloody Horizon)  - Slovenia
Ufuk faciasi  (Event Horizon)   - Turkey 


"You know nothing.  Hell is only a word.  The reality is much worse."
                                                                                     -Dr. Weir


Event Horizon is a film that I hold dear to my heart.  This film was one of the first to actually make me question whether or not I could take the terror of the film.  That may sound silly to you, but lets go back in time to the year 1997.  An 18 year old Midnight Cinephile goes by himself to a Tuesday night showing of Event Horizon.  He is completely alone in the theater (just the way he liked it!).  The film starts familiarly enough.....a deep space salvage crew is recruited to take one Dr. Weir on a mission to explore his ship, The Event Horizon, which had previously vanished after trying out a new device on it's maiden voyage that is to warp time and space.  The ship vanishes into a black hole and has only  recently reappeared above the planet Neptune.

Meet the crew of the Lewis & Clark, a space salvage team....

All was going well for me until the scene in which the crew plays the distress call that had been received from the Event Horizon.  The 5 - 10 second audio clip that played nearly destroyed me.  I broke out in a cold sweat and I suddenly desperately wished that there was someone, ANYONE was in the theater with me.  The feeling of isolation was further exacerbated by the desolate cinematography of the film.  You really felt as though you were out in the middle of nowhere, with no help in sight.  The whole film shifted tones for me after that distress call played.  I wasn't dealing with just some spooky alien monster on the loose flick, I was dealing with something much more sinister.

That's no moon......it's a giant fucking portal to HELL!!!!!!

So where did the Event Horizon go?  Well, that's what the crew wants to find out.  Upon boarding the ship, they find a horrific scene on the bridge, bodies beyond mutilated and floating frozen through the ship.  What could have happened?  Hell.  I'm not talking metaphorically.  The ship LITERALLY WENT TO FUCKING HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Video data that the crew watches shows some of the chaos and madness.  Most unfortunately, it seems as though the ship itself is now alive and is praying on the crew, possessing some.

A couple of great shots of the architecture of the ship....pay no attention to the gore on the windows....

Yes, you are reading this right:  Event Horizon is a terrifying haunted house story set in the absolute desolation and isolation of outer space.  I would rather deal with a Xenopmorph any day that spend a second on that derelict ship from hell.  Every single frame absolutely drips with menace and atmosphere.

I made it through the end of the film that fateful Tuesday night, but my understanding of horror had forever been changed.  Just the mention of the title is enough to send a shiver down my spine these days, and yet I own the film in three different formats (VHS, DVD, Blu Ray).  This film is severely underrated and it should absolutely go down as a classic in the pantheon of haunted horror cinema.

Well, that's just....unsettling.

Midnight Cinephile Tally

Death Toll:  To be perfectly honest, I forgot to keep a running tally of the deaths....but there are at least 6 on screen deaths and of course there's the gore soaked frozen aftermath of the ship's occupants' trip to hell...as well as a few highly disturbing flashbacks and hallucinations.

Nude-O-Meter:  We get to see exactly one pair of breasts...but to be honest you're going to be too freaked out to even worry about them.

Things That Go Bump In The Night:  The whole goddamned ship is like one giant evil....thing that goes bump in the night.

Final Thoughts
In case it didn't come across very clearly above:  I love this film.  There's nothing that I don't love about it.  The direction, the cinematography and above all....that oppressive, pervasive doom that permeates the entire film.  You want to see on of the scariest haunted house movies ever?  Guess what....this is it.  The ship itself even has a certain Gothic styling to it that seems to recall some ancient evil place.

Final Rating
Five out of Five Pizza Rolls!