Home Entertainment Friday Fright Club: Event Horizon

Friday Fright Club: Event Horizon

2 min read
6

Welcome back to another installment of Friday Fright Club, horror fans. For those of you dedicated to the perfect DVD collection, today’s film is definitely a must-have, if only to freak the bejeezus out of your friends when they call you a nerd for owning too much sci-fi films (It’s okay, Kervyn). That film, of course, is Event Horizon – directed by none other than Paul W.S. Anderson, proving once and for all that he doesn’t only make films starring Milla Jovovich.

Sci-fi horror has always been a fan-favourite for many of us film geeks, which is why the internet exploded into such a frenzy of debating when Prometheus underwhelmed the entire world in 2012. As sci-fi, it needs to be at least moderately intelligently written but blending the horror elements in perfectly is what will make the fans respond to the film positively. If we consider Alien, for a moment. As a sci-fi film we were drawn into a meticulously crafted and believable universe, but as a horror it perfectly built the tension and fear that the audience wants and deserves. It stands as a testament to great writing and great directing.

While Event Horizon might not be as revered as Ridley Scott’s early venture, it quickly escalated to cult status following its VHS and DVD release.

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, Event Horizon deals with the crew of the rescue vessel “Lois and Clark” that pick up a distress signal from an experimental ship that disappeared on its maiden voyage to Proxima Centauri. The ship’s designer (none other than Sam Neill, for a touch of class) is taken along for the rescue mission but once they get there, they find the entire crew dead – seemingly from a horrendous massacre. As you can expect, it all goes south very quickly from there as the crew realizes that there is a very good chance that the ship has been to hell and back, literally. Why do things always seem to go wrong, the moment Mr. Neill sets foot somewhere?

Nobody can debate that it sounds like a recipe for a great popcorn flick and it really is a fun, scary film to watch. As the film toys with the fears of the crew on the ship it also toys with our own, before descending into all-out bloody horror. It really is hard not to enjoy the film, particularly as it has aged relatively well. It also sports a great cast – Sam Neill, as I mentioned earlier, but Lawrence Fishburne and Kathleen Quinlan are in the mix as well, to name but a few.

What are you guys waiting around for, then? You now know exactly which film to rent this weekend when your parents come over for Sunday lunch. I believe Event Horizon goes down well with a leg of lamb.

Last Updated: March 1, 2013

6 Comments

  1. Sam Neill, naked, cut up and without skin is just wrong. Especially when you see this film as a kid.

    Reply

    • Uberutang

      March 1, 2013 at 13:46

      Pretty sure it was R18 when it released here…

      Reply

  2. Draco Lusus

    March 1, 2013 at 13:42

    One of my favorite movies of all time. Had such an awesome atmosphere.

    Reply

  3. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    March 1, 2013 at 13:42

    I watched this when I was still a kid. Had nightmares for a month! Sheer brilliance

    Reply

  4. James Francis

    March 1, 2013 at 15:03

    There is a key reason why this never reached the level of Aliens. Paul Anderson crafts a good world, but he does not always pay attention to the subtleties of the genre. Basically, he shoots it just like every other movie. Sometimes it works (Resident Evil), sometimes it wobbles (Soldier) and sometimes it is just awful (Three Musketeers).

    To contrast, Ridley Scott openly admits that with Alien he lifted a lot of ideas and shots from Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is often the best way to do horror, by replicating previous ideas. For example, Friday The 13th totally plagiarized Halloween. Had Event Horizon done this and used the techniques that have made previous horrors work, it would have been even better. Even films like Solaris, Supernova and Sunshine managed to generate more tension from their characters than this film. But Anderson let the sets do all the work. That is the difference between him and Scott – the latter meshes all the facets together, not allowing one aspect to override what other things bring to the film. It is also where I think he went wrong in films such as Prometheus and Robin Hood.

    Reply

  5. Noelle Adams

    March 2, 2013 at 09:35

    Apparently the original cut of the film was quite different from the one that released in cinemas… although the extra footage has since been lost.

    I would kill to see the Director’s Cut, which would no doubt flesh out a couple of the film’s weaker areas – such as the cynical medical officer with his chest scars. But yeah, regardless, I love it. As close to a proper Doom film as we’ll ever get.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Jurassic World: Dominion to tell parallel stories with different sets of characters

The final installment of the Jurassic World movies will see two parallel storylines that f…