Violence and gore are not substitutes for quality writing...

Rating: 8/10 (10 August 2008)

Event Horizon, the title of the movie, and the title of the fictitious spaceship in the movie that is capable of bending both space and time. And a crew of military spaceship operators are hired to track down the ship after it mysteriously resurfaces in deep space after being lost for the last seven years. Where has this time bending ship been the last seven years? Such a promising and intriguing premise is brutally ruined with over the top gore and violence. What could have been a thinking person's science-fiction mystery or even 'space detective' style movie is quickly reduced do a brain dead slasher gore fest complete with enough blood and mayhem to nearly erase the solid 45 minutes of brilliant writing, directing, and acting that preceded it.
Eventually it is revealed that the ship most likely jumped forward in time seven years, instantly appearing at the current time of the movie. If the writers had simply left the movie at that I would have rated this a 10. But instead the ship is somehow magically transported to hell and back...and thus begins the gratuitous and ridiculous levels of violence.
Sadly the intent of the movie producers and directors was to not only have the level of gore in the released version of the movie, but an even higher level of gore that had to be toned down to achieve an R rating.
This is sad, because violence and gore, while sometimes are great in films, are not worthy substitutes for quality writing and storytelling. Violence with very little plot attached can basically summarize the last 45 minutes of an otherwise perfect film. A 'less is more' approach would have better sufficed, not the full-on head-first blood orgy that happens instead.