Event Horizon (1997) - Fair or Foul Review

Event Horizon was released 23 years ago. It was a box office bomb that was blasted by critics and considered to be a terrible horror movie. I saw it a few months after it was initially released and was terrified by it at the impressionable age of 12. Since then, it’s become something of a cult favorite among horror movie fans, despite its numerous flaws and dated aesthetic. I’ve seen it several times since my initial viewing, but not since I started reviewing movies on this website. So, I watched it again to get a fresh take in a new year and realized that it warranted a Fair or Foul review due to its half-good nature.

Fair: Conceptually Interesting

In the “distant” future of 2040, the experimental spaceship, Event Horizon, was sent to the edge of the solar system to explore the distant parts of space and vanished without a trace. Seven years later, it mysteriously returns. A small group of "astronauts,” along with the ship’s designer, Dr. Weir (Sam Neil), are sent out to recover it and uncover what might have happened. Dr. Weir quickly discusses how the ship might have disappeared in the first place to the team of “specialists” who appear to lack some of the brain capacity to understand most of his descriptions. The ship’s experimental gravity drive allows it to travel to distant parts of the universe by creating a black hole and singularity that it can then use to warp through space and time. Something obviously went wrong with that whole process, because when the team of “astronauts” arrive, the ship is vacant, there are weird pieces of flesh on a few walls (that no one ever seems to address), there’s a distorted video recording that doesn’t seem too friendly, and the rescue ship gets almost destroyed within the first few minutes of coming aboard.

Due to the explosive reaction of one of the team members getting sucked into the gravity drive itself, their vessel nearly gets blown apart, forcing everyone aboard the Event Horizon while their tiny craft is repaired. Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne) is rationally skeptical of the spookiness but is provided enough evidence to quickly change his mind. Dr. Weir is more stubborn with his skepticism, even after a few moments in which spooky things occur. Not to mention, he even seems to be succumbing to a bit of the cosmic madness that surrounds the place. Every other crew member, while they have their own personalities to try to make them stand out, is mostly irrelevant, and—as you might expect—not all of them make it off the ship alive by the end.

At some point, it is revealed that using a black hole to travel the galaxy doesn’t restrict you to your universe but can bring you to another universe, such as Hell or something similar. It is also revealed that doing something like that would make an inanimate object like a spaceship suddenly sentient and capable of showing horrific imagery and manipulating the world around it, or just haunted by otherworldly spirits with malicious intent, at the very least. Having the engine of a spaceship use something that is so unknown to humanity, like a black hole, and essentially become a Lament Configuration is a great idea on paper and mostly translates to the screen pretty well.

Fair: Subtle Nods to Better Films

Event Horizon wears its inspirations on its sleeve: Alien, Hellraiser, Solaris, etc. And it does so largely to its benefit. Most fans of the movie agree that the first half of the film is the better portion. Part of this has to do with how much it resembles other good horror films. It’s not as slow-paced as Alien, but the structure of introducing the crew and the setting is there. The pace at which the dangers are revealed and some of the shots themselves resemble Alien in a good way.

Likewise, the set design seems like a Clive Barker trapper-keeper with a lot of sharp spikes and odd-shaped gears that would resemble a new-age Lament Configuration of Hellraiser. There are also a decent amount of smooth surfaces and tunnels that also fit into an HR Giger sketchbook, or at least somewhere in his book before all the imagery becomes extremely graphic and resembles Alien.

It’s because nothing too extreme happens for the first half that you’re able to enjoy and admire these qualities that call to other horror movies without much interruption. Even when the proverbial crap hits the fan, there are still some good make-up effects and use of tried-n-true horror techniques to satiate a horror fan’s bloodlust. And even though the second half is certainly the more gory and less psychological part of the movie, the gore is tame by today’s standards because a lot of it is shown off-screen or with quick cutaways. This even manages to make the horror of the moment itself a little better, since I tend to argue that less is more in these situations. I don’t think the second half is great, but it’s not as terrible as the critics thought it was. Not to mention, the movie is only about 90 minutes long so it’s not a huge drag anyway.

Foul: Similarities to Not-Good Horror Films

All the praise of Event Horizon’s similarities to good movies being said, it cannot escape the other tropes that are not so good. First of all, our rag-tag group of “astronauts,” whom you would expect to be extremely skilled and intelligent, are morons. There are some exceptions, and even in some moments, the less intelligent individuals show a brief glimpse at genius before the flame burns out again. Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne) and Dr. Weir (Sam Neil) are the two characters that matter, so they’re the only ones who seem to have any brain cells most of the time. There are several scenes in Event Horizon where these extremely skilled people do stupid things like dip their hand inside an unknown dark substance or run after the image of a kid—who can’t run in real life so it’s obviously not a real thing.

Accompanying the common trope of dumb characters in a horror film is an abundance of lame jump scares and dated CGI. Even though Event Horizon scared me as a kid, watching it now in an isolation tank couldn’t make it scare me. The jump scares are weak and you can see them coming miles away. The movie is really trying to get you nervous and tense but is constantly struggling to do so.

It doesn’t help when the CGI that is in the foreground of so many shots just looks terrible. Event Horizon came out at a time when CGI was the most important new effect to have in movies so there’s a lot of it, but it also came out at a time when practical effects and makeup were still used and widely regarded as necessary. So thankfully, there is a bit of the practical stuff to balance out the ugly CGI that sticks out like a bright flag that says “Made in 1997.”

Foul: Intensity From Everything Except the Actors

To further drive home the point that Event Horizon wants you to feel tense and nervous, there is an overabundance of intensity in this movie. Since it’s a horror film that wants to scare you but doesn’t seem to know how to do that, it uses jump scares in the quiet moments and loud bombastic sequences in the moments that should also be quiet.

For example, the early scene in which the team arrives at the ghost ship is needlessly intense with a lot of quick camera cuts, people shouting, numbers counting down, and people making concerned faces as they approach their destination in a bumpy storm at the top of Neptune’s atmosphere. Considering we’ve only just met all these characters—who aren’t worth knowing anyway—it’s hard to feel very attached to them and nervous about how they might not be able to dock with the Event Horizon. Am I supposed to think that the film would kill off all the characters in the opening 15 minutes? It might have been more interesting if it did. What would have been even better is to have them arrive at the ship smoothly. Then we would be able to marvel at the model of the ship in a quiet ominous moment and let the quiet build the tension and anticipation. There are other scenes scattered throughout the film involving stupid characters getting into trouble, and plenty of scenes full of strobe lights, gas effects, and loud noises. If ever a remake is made, I beseech the filmmakers to quiet it down a bit.

I also request the cast to try to act a little better. I won’t harp on this too much, but aside from Sam Neil, Lawrence Fishburne, and Jason Isaacs, the cast is pretty flat in their performances. Even those three have their moments of weak acting where it’s not very convincing or interesting to watch. The worst offender is Jack Noseworthy who is just amazingly capable of sucking the energy out of every scene in which he speaks. Thankfully, there’s not too much of that.

TL;DR (Conclusion): Fair

Event Horizon is something of a polarizing horror movie. If you’re looking for high-brow horror like Hereditary, The Witch, or even Alien, you’re probably not going to enjoy it. If, however, you come looking for a Deep Rising experience, or just anything that Paul WS Anderson has directed (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, etc.), you might enjoy it. I am not going to tout Event Horizon as a brilliant horror film that got reamed by critics unfairly, but I will say the movie is okay.