"Run It Through A Few Filters"

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2019)

WTF did I just watch? Hellraiser In Space!
The year is 2047 and Dr. William Weir (Sam Neil) is a scientist / engineer on board a space station in low Earth orbit. He has just gotten word of a distress beacon being sent from the spacecraft Event Horizon in orbit around Neptune. He designed the spacecraft and its unique time-and-space-bending engine core gravity drive and sent it on its way seven years ago. Then he lost contact with it and it was assumed all aboard were dead in some tragic accident.
Now it seems to have returned, and he's got to get there and see what happened.
He catches a ride there on the Lewis And Clark, a ship run Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne) and a crew of six. Nobody on the Lewis and Clark want to go on this mission because they haven't had a vacation in a long time, so they are less than welcoming when the good doctor boards.
They are even less pleased when they get to the Event Horizon and seriously messed up things start happening. Apparently, this engine core gravity drive has opened a gateway to Hell, and each member of the crew is faced with their greatest fears.
Random Thoughts:
Sam Neil should not have been allowed to run around shirtless. Nobody wants to see that.
The ship log on the Event Horizon was on a CD Rom. Really? The prop people couldn't imagine a more futuristic solution to data storage?
Why doesn't anyone on board have a gun? The weapons they choose are knives or saws.
For the most part the design of the space ship and various props was pretty darn good, but there were several consoles and a scanning device that looked embarrassingly dated and cheap. The same goes with the special effects - most were well done but the ones that weren't really take you out of the moment. The design of the core gravity drive was spectacular. The "special effect" of the crew creeping along in zero-g with "gravity boots" looked really stupid.
When the very handsome Cooper (Richard T Jones) offers coffee to a crew member by asking "You want something hot and black inside of you?" I nearly fell off the couch and onto the floor screaming "Yes! Yes! Lord Hammercy! Yes!" *fans self*
This is a good film that could have been a great film with a little more time, and a bigger budget ... and a little more of the scenes from Hell (it goes by so quickly). Perhaps they should have "run it through a few filters".
Recommended.