'Alien' meets 'The Shining'. So there.

Rating: 7/10 (6 November 1999)

I have read more than one review which has used the above statement, and upon viewing this slick but mixed bag of frights, I can see their point.
Here are just a few things that this film rips off of 'Alien' & 'The Shining': - In Alien, Ash (played by a non-American actor) is the traitor in the midst. In Event Horizon it's Weir (played by a non-American actor) - The tone is almost identical to Alien, what with a largely unseen enemy and the final race against time (and a ticking bomb) - The 'inventor's block' suffered by Weir is almost identical to and is handled in a very similar (if more clumsy) way to Jack's madness in The Shining. - There are two scenes lifted directly out of The Shining - the beatiful naked woman in the bath who turns nasty and the cascade of blood
However, I still found myself enjoying this film immensely and getting completely taken in by it, and the FX and art direction are great. In any case, at least it steals from two good films. There were several good set-pieces throughout (occasionally marred by Anderson's use of over familiar cliches) and some impressive effects shots (the pull back from the space station and the first visit to a zero gravity Event Horizon are perfect examples). For the first hour, the film keeps impressively spooky yet keeping it's tongue firmly in cheek.
The downside of the film is the clumsy scripting. To say that the dialogue is cheesy is an insult to dairy products ('we won't need eyes where we're going' and Weir's constant repetition of 'DO YOU SEE!!!' are prime examples of some lazy scripting). The concept that the ship has gone to hell is severely underused, and is really quite a good concept. Although we are given some brief hints of the Event Horizon's journey into hell with the final, squirming log entry, it never develops into the true nightmare we so wish it to, instead opting for done to death 'eerie' corridor walks and some grisly but boring 'Hellraiser'-style make up effects. Yet the film is still entertaining, and we are least given a juicy, explosion fuelled climax., but for all it's efforts it remains flawed. At least it is this good, given the pitfalls of such an over used genre.