A cracking horror film!

Rating: 7/10 (29 September 2010)

I saw "Event Horizon" when it first came out in '97 and found it immensely disturbing! Repeat viewings have lessened the impact, but it's still Paul Anderson's finest film to date. The set design - all Gothic chambers and torturous spikes - is a work of art and the visual effects are excellent. Liquid suspended in zero gravity, a walking man on fire and the ship itself are all extremely well done.
This is indeed an underrated horror movie and bears much more of a likeness to "The Shining" than it does to "Alien". However, it most closely mirrors Michael Crichton's novel "Sphere" (1987), which was made into a woefully inadequate film with Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L Jackson. The idea of a spaceship discovered which affects the salvage team's psyche is the central premise - "Sphere" even has a reference to the term "event horizon".
This movie slightly falls over in two main areas. Firstly, the characters are not well enough explored (not even Weir, with memories of his deceased wife), although the crew banter riffs naturally on the crew dynamics in "Alien".
Secondly - and most importantly - the film loses its knife edge tension in the last third, due to an accelerated narrative and a descent into hell. Weir (Sam Neill) in particular becomes a clichéd figure and it's down to Laurence Fishburne (excellent) to maintain the credibility.
That said, the scares are well staged and Anderson uses split-second (almost subliminal) shots of body horror and torture, along with clever use of sound and music, to ratchet up the fear factor. The production design and cinematography is excellent - if you've not seen it, give it a go.