I wasn't amazed by this movie

Rating: 5/10 (17 December 2012)

A horror science-fiction movie. When I think of this genre I always have "Alien" on my mind. I think this is a perfect example. Unfortunately "Event Horizon" lacks both in the horror and science-fiction parts.
As for the science fiction - well it is just not realistic enough. Of course not all movies should be as realistic as "2010: Space Odyssey", but still when you compare it to "Alien" it turns out quite poor. Actually there is not much realism or physics in it at all. OK - the idea of time-space folding is nice, but the idea itself is at least as old as The Dune movie, or perhaps even older. I liked the scene of transition from zero gravity to artificial-earth gravity with fluids and bodies instantly dropping. The decompression sequence tries to be more horror like than scientific... and that is all I think. The rest is just pure fantasy.
So forget about science-fiction - is it a good horror? This might be a difficult question for me as most horrors make me laugh rather than scare mostly due to their stupidity and lack of realism. There are of course exceptions like Alien or The Thing. What makes the difference? I think it is the realism of the situation. I really can't be scared by ghosts which can do anything. It is just too unreal - I can not place myself in such a world and my imagination fails. Unfortunately Event Horizon is a movie it this ghost type. Anything can happen therefore I do not feel like one of the terrified crew members, rather I wonder what could the director think of next. Of course there are some more or less scary moments, but these are just typical horror tricks - sudden action with a proper sound effect. There is no feel of terror while watching the movie.
Another thing at which the movie fails is the plot. While the beginning sequences are quite interesting with every minute the plot becomes more and more chaotic. At some stage one really gets bored as it seems that there is no real goal or solution of the plot. One by one some things happen which try to scare you, but there is no logic in them. I can imagine that such a movie could last for a long time with random scary adventures happening to the characters until all of them are dead. But what is the point of watching that? Unfortunately the ending is also quite predictable and gives you no satisfaction of discovering something interesting or an unexpected solution. It is just as plain as that.
OK - so is the movie really so bad? Well it is not a perfect movie, but not a terrible one either. One can watch it and have some fun but it is not a movie that you would like to come back to after years. Just see once, have fun and forget.
It is worth to mention that the move has it's own style. While placed in future all the ships and equipment sometimes look like designed in the past. I can't describe it exactly but sometimes I had a feel of watching a sci-fiction movie from the fifties. Why did the director decide to chose such a scenography instead of pure futuristic one? No idea but I think it works fine.