In the year 2040, a massive starship known as the "Event Horizon" vanished on its maiden voyage to a star, and was thought to be lost to the world. Seven years later, a distress call is sent out...from the once-thought lost ship, which has seemingly returned from a black hole. The crew of a rescue vessel, nicknamed the "Lewis and Clark," set out along with the chief designer of the former starship in order to answer the call, and discover that the "Event Horizon" may not have come back alone.
I'm not shy about expressing my disappointment when it comes to the man known as Paul William Scott (or "W.S.") Anderson. The English action/science fiction/horror movie director helmed one of my favorite dumb films growing up in Mortal Kombat, which I still defend as one of the better video game adaptations to date, and boasted one of the very best soundtracks of the mid-90s, exposing me to many sub-genres of heavy music that I had never heard before. But after that, it was a quick downward spiral for the man, as the quality in his films worsened, and he just floundered in assorted video game and comic book adaptations that broke, stomped, and then defecated upon my poor heart. Defenders of his post-Kombat work would frequently ask me one question though: had I seen Event Horizon? Well, no, I had not. But, thanks to this wonderful time of year, now I have. And I may have to apologize about my previous beliefs: for as imperfect as it may be, this, and not Mortal Kombat, may have been the last glimpse of potential talent the man may have once possessed.
Anderson and casting director Alex Wald picked arguably their most prolific batch of names to work on this project, with Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, The Piano) and Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix, Boyz n The Hood) to serve as our main protagonists respectively. They're easily the most well-rounded of the characters, but that's only because everyone else is rather lazily thought out, or is given no background whatsoever, coming across like drawn out and dreaded "red shirts" that could give the cast members from the current season of The Walking Dead a run for their money. I did like seeing Sean Pertwee (Dog Soldiers, Equilibrium) pop up as a crew member of the "Lewis & Clark" ship, even if he does tend to have a small case of Jason Statham syndrome, in that he'll end up playing near-duplicates of the same character every time out. I don't think anyone will argue that Paul W.S. Anderson has never been an "acting" director though, as despite boasting a fairly decent cast, nobody really delivers commendable jobs (or even looks animated) until arguably the final twenty or thirty minutes when the "shit hits the fan," so to say. There's an indication that everyone may be losing their minds and has to be potentially fallible, but nobody is especially convincing save for perhaps one individual who I won't spoil.
When Event Horizon's real plot begins to unravel over the course of its running time, it does make for some admittedly interesting twists and turns, but seems more intent on hypnotizing you with its visual appeal and cinematography than anything else. Admittedly, that is fairly nice to look at, especially given who we're talking about here, but so much of it seems lifted from superior pictures, even if you don't recognize it while watching the first time around. Upon first glance, one thinks we're in for a knockoff of Ridley Scott's Alien or heaven forbid, a ripoff of a Roger Corman science fiction picture. Thankfully, neither of these comes to fruition, and instead I came away feeling as if I'd sat through an uncommon mixture of The Shining meets House, except obviously stuck in the deepest reaches of outer space and with less memorable characters. I also realized just how much 2009's Pandorum borrowed from this motion picture, to the point where I'm actually disgusted that Anderson himself produced that pile of feces.
Even with the apparent and quite obvious flaws, I'd be curious to revisit this in several years, especially if what Paul W.S. Anderson says is true about an extended cut existing out there somewhere. Supposedly, it includes thirty minutes of extra footage and a rather heavy amount of additional violence, which was so severe and off-putting that it initially garnered an NC-17 rating, which as anybody knows is a kiss of death in Hollywood for any director trying to make a decent profit. As nice as that would be, the violence did seem rushed into the end just to please the horror fans like myself. And while the man could be talking out of his own posterior, like he did when he made me believe that Alien vs Predator was going to be a good picture, I have at least one eyebrow raised high in this situation. So I say bring it on.
Tomorrow, we're nearing the end, but travel far back to give birth to ROSEMARY'S BABY!
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