An underrated sci-fi horror flick

Rating: 6/10 (24 April 2014)

There were two films that "Event Horizon" reminded me of. The first movie it reminded me of was Ridley Scott's "Alien" from 1979 where a crew aboard a freighter goes down to a planet, brings back the alien creature, and then has it pick off the crew one by one. The other film I was reminded of was the film "Sphere" based off a novel by Michael Crichton where a team underwater finds a futuristic spaceship and discovers a sphere on it which allows the people who enter it to create real threats with their thoughts. "Event Horizon" has the scary, dramatic thrill that "Alien" had, but also some of the stupidity that "Sphere" had.
In the year 2040, the starship 'Event Horizon' disappeared on its maiden voyage. Seven years later, a distress signal from the ship has been received and the crew of the rescue vessel 'Lewis and Clark', along with Dr. Weir (Sam Neil) who helped build the ship, are sent to investigate it. Upon arriving at the ship, they find the crew all dead, but that there are still life-sign readings. Upon further investigation, it turns out that the ship entered a black hole and emerged, now with something controlling it.
Starting off, the crew of the ship is not all that interesting. There is a stereotypical comedic relief character named Cooper (Richard T. Jones), a member of the crew who was whisked away from her son's birthday named Peters (Kathleen Quinlan), and several others. The only two characters in the film who stand out as even remotely interesting are Dr. Weir and Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne). However, with the exception of Cooper, the characters are not annoying blank slates that are just there for cannon fodder and, for the most part, you can at least be mildly worried about what the outcome for the character might be.
I really appreciate that in a film like this that was made in the late '90s that they did not resort to CGI to create the ships and used models instead, and that the use of CGI was very restricted. The use of models for the ships reminded me and helped me picture the setting of "Alien", which I think the film was basing its horror movie in space premise off of. The film was not more interested in showing special effects than it was on telling the story it wanted to tell, which I am glad about. Another notable thing to mention is the design of the 'Event Horizon' is an original spaceship design that I have never seen in any other movie or television show.
After the crew of the 'Lewis and Clark' look around and investigate the ship, the movie starts to go into the stupidity territory with its plot. The ship used its gravity-drive to enter another universe via a black hole and when it came out, the ship began to screw with its crew, and now the 'Lewis and Clark' crew's minds. I liked the fact that there was not a monster that was on the ship that picked the crew off and it was more of a psychological horror story for the cast, but the idea that the ship is now alive and doing that is ludicrous, even in science-fiction terms. There is not an A.I in the ship's computer that went haywire from the black hole, or the ship is not just stuck in between the two universes, the ship is simply alive and is scaring them.
At the end, I became a little fed up with the movie because it did the only thing dumber than having the ship be alive. It brought back Dr. Weir, who beforehand had been sucked into space via an opening in the ship after he was, I have no idea so let's just say infected, by the ship. The ship brings him back, now as a monster to confront Captain Miller.
The film does have some stupid moments in it; sometimes really stupid moments, but it also has a genuinely creepy atmosphere and tone to it, and the idea that the crew is being attacked by their thoughts and not some scary space creature is something I enjoyed. While I will not say this is an underrated masterpiece, I will say it is an underrated film that more people should watch.