Okay movie, but owes huge debt to better film makers

Rating: 6/10 (18 April 2015)

Paul WS Anderson has never been shy of inviting people to compare his work (unworthily) to Ridley Scott and James Cameron's time and time again, but Event Horizon, whilst starting off with an unashamedly barefaced 'homage' to Alien's blue collar vibe, owes more to John Carpenter than anyone else. Admittedly Anderson telegraphs this from the opening expositional text, which, like Carpenter's seminal Escape from New York, ends with the year it's set in before declaring that its future setting is actually (a very meta) NOW (something Neil Marshall would repeat in his EfNY/Carpenter homage, Doomsday). The whole flick could be summed up as '2010: Odyssey 2 meets Prince of Darkness' with a little Stanley Kubrick touch added here or there. So, no points for originality then, as Anderson begins his lifelong career choice of associating himself with better and more successful directors. But, despite all this, the movie isn't the train wreck it perhaps deserved to be. Most of the actors throw themselves into their (underdeveloped) roles and, aside from some wooden dialogue and ham-fisted exposition, do a mostly decent job. The special FX are passable, again apart from some ropey effects of liquid suspended in zero gravity. There's a few decent jump scares and a foreboding atmosphere actually more subtle than you would really expect from Anderson. Make up and gore effects were decent too. I'm not a fan of Anderson, and have resisted watching Event Horizon for years, despite repeated recommendations,. But having watched it now, I can happily say I found it his most watchable flick, even though as I write this it's now 18 years old. Is it great? No. Terrible? No. Slightly above average? Yeah, that's fair. But I suppose your work will be elevated too when you stand on the shoulders of giants.