If you haven’t seen Event Horizon (1997), I recommend going in blind. I heard too much about it prior to watching it and it gave me high expectations for cosmic horror which fell short. So if you haven’t seen it, stop reading this review, go watch it, and then come back to discuss.
Also, if you want more horror movie reviews, be sure to follow me on Letterboxd where I post my reviews first and also make watch lists, and more.
A rescue crew investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned…with someone or something new on-board.
This movie is a prime example of having fantastic acting, special effects, and cool concept does not mean that a great movie will come from it. Despite loving pieces of Event Horizon, I just couldn’t love this movie as a whole.
The acting is fantastic as you would expect from a cast including Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Isaacs, and other excellent actors. Scenes that fell flat were not for lack of acting chops as I believe they did the best they could with the material they were given. Fishburne’s Miller was definitely his preparation role for Morpheus in The Matrix. Neill’s Weir certainly benefited from his role in “In the Mouth of Madness.” All very good.
The special effects were excellent. Lots of explosions, some gore, and of course playing with gravity. Nothing felt hokey and it wall was super smooth. The sets harken back to the Alien franchise but I think in a good way.
The story itself was promising. Its a ghost ship tale in space where a salvage ship heads out to investigate a distress signal from a ship that has been missing for 7 years. (The story takes place in 2047, just 24 years from the time of this review, which is hilarious.) Of course the mission isn’t as simple as it sounds and, like Aliens, not everyone on board the rescue crew is what they seem.
3 Stars
I sincerely wanted to love this movie but it just fell flat for me.
The idea of a ship that can fold space and time could have opened up some very cool and weird horror. Time loops, reiterations of the crew past and now, and more. It could have been so fun to play with this space in a way similar to say Cube2. Instead I feel like it went…not necessarily lazy but certainly an easier way out with “we punched a hole in dimensions and the ship went to hell via a black hole.” Then the whole story is obviously inspired by Hellraiser with its glimpses of body horror, bleeding walls, etc. I love Hellraiser, and this movie’s version of Hellraiser in Space is definitely better than when the franchise did it in Hellraiser 4 but…it still didn’t hit the right scary buttons for me.
Then there was the character arc and growth. The 3 survivors are people we barely see in the movie and have no background for. We got glimpses into the trauma behind Weir, Miller, and Peters which I wish could say made their deaths harder to watch…but mostly I was bored by it.
I think if this movie had been more of a slow burn, creepier, weirder and gone into the lives of all of the ships crew, the backstories and trauma and guilt would have read better on screen. Instead it felt sloppy and forced.
In the end, we are left with 3 survivors…really 2 survivors and a victim, who I’m very blah about. The only cool thing about the survivor choice was seeing Cooper’s survival break the trope of the funny black guy being one of the earliest victims.
In all, I think its a good addition to the space horror, ghost ship story collection and certainly one of the better ones. However, as a stand alone horror movie with a great cast and special effects, it was a let down.
Recommendation
If you enjoyed Event Horizon I of course would want to make sure you’ve seen Alien and Aliens for space horror, Ghost Ship for the ghost ship salvage story, and Hellraiser if you like interdimensional hell horror. If you want to see Sam Neill in something really creepy, watch In the Mouth of Madness, a movie I love probably more than necessary.
