almost sang its song in tune

Rating: 6/10 (20 April 1999)

Once upon a time there were two movies, both considered masterpieces of their genre.
One was callied "Alien", the brilliantly realized SF/Horror film from Ridley Scott, about a deep space mission that brought back an unwanted predatory visitor from the imagination of Giger.
The other film was called "Solaris", about a deep space mission that caused the crew to exhibit psychotic behavior and keep living out scenes from their earth life. Solaris, an intellectual film from the Soviet-era genius Andrei Tarkovsky, is the more complex film. It does not attempt to explain whether the hallucinations are caused by an external force, space fever, passage into a time-space warp, or just the fact that you can't ever run from yourself, not matter how far you go. No monsters.
"Event Horizon" is a cross breed between these two legendary deep-space films. The monster is there, but it inhabits the minds of the crew, learns everything about them, every fear, every memory, and causes their insanity. Solaris with action, and an identified external cause. The idea was pretty damned good, the special effects and visuals were brilliant, and they hired a good cast. Some of the moments will scare the beejeepers out of you.
But they went over the top in some ways. Too many explosions. A fist-fight with the monster, what's that all about? Too many empty-headed discussions about what man was or wasn't meant to know. Ultimately too little really original. Reviewers were sharply divided on this film. Some said it was a truly brilliant scare-fest, others thought is was a zero-star waste of their precious time. I don't know. It isn't Alien or Solaris, but it has a lot of positives and I enjoyed it, but I don't plan to watch it again.