Movie Review: Event Horizon

Directed by Christian Alvart, 1997

Pros: excellent acting

Cons: several gory and disturbing scenes

Seven years ago the space ship Event Horizon disappeared.  Now, a rescue crew is sent to check out a distress signal from the ship carrying Dr. William Weir, the ship’s creator.  But things aren’t right when they find the Event Horizon.  Something’s come back with the ship from wherever it disappeared to, something evil.

The film is blessed with some great actors, Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus from The Matrix) and Sam Neill (Dr. Grant from Jurassic Park) being the headliners, and while the roles are typical horror fare (person who freaks out, person who’s cold and collected, kick-ass woman, comedy relief, intelligent captain, etc.) the actors do a great job in their roles.  The tone and look of the film was half way between the original Alien (for its aesthetic and horror aspects) and the sequel Aliens (for some banter and kickassery). 

I’m not a fan of gory horror and there were some truly disturbing scenes here that I could have done without.  But it really works for this film.  

There’s not as much character building before the horror starts, so I didn’t care about the characters as much as I’d have liked, but the story was interesting - if simple.  Great horror doesn’t require complexity though, if there are some good lines, decent characters and great actors, all of which Event Horizon has.

I’m sorry it took me this long to see the film.