Not perfect, but an accomplished chiller

Rating: 6/10 (16 December 2000)

After his less-than-impressive (but appropriately cheesy) directorial debut Mortal Kombat, Paul Anderson tried his hand at making a 'serious' movie with Event Horizon, and the result is surprisingly decent. The title refers to a top-secret deep-space experimental vessel that inexplicably went missing, only to reappear - just as inexplicably - seven years later. So a rescue crew, led by Lawrence Fishburne, is sent to investigate, but needless to say, the get far more than they gambled for.
For the first half, the film does a good job of building up a creepy atmosphere. In particular, the idea of where the ship has been, and what it has brought back with it, overflows with arresting potential. Unfortunately for Anderson, however, this potential is never realised, despite some impressive CGI and nifty camera work. For the second half of the film, he just relies on excessive gore to scare his audience, and therein lies the film's main weakness: what started off by building up genuine psychological dread just turns nasty and unpleasant - not to mention unconvincing - at the end. And when Sam Neill's scientist starts running amok among the mayhem committing assorted atrocities, the film completely loses its plot. The performances are merely passable, with the afforementioned Neill ending up being positively ludicrous. That said, however, Anderson does manage to conjure up some truly intense moments, and there are some inventive special effects that help make the whole thing (just about) worth sitting through.
Not perfect, then, nor particularly original, but as horror hokum goes, pretty reasonable.
6/10