A good idea drowned in red dye and bad writing

Rating: 3/10 (6 October 2008)

I just saw Event Horizon on DVD, long after it was finished bombing in theaters, so if I were jumping on a bandwagon by calling it a banal sci-fi/horror misfire, that bandwagon has already left without me. I genuinely didn't like this film, although there was still enough substance to earn three stars, and I feel like that's pretty generous.
The movie opens with an in-your-face techno song played over a worm hole effect that looks like what you'd see on Windows Media Player, and until that point, I had high hopes for the film. Since it's become a cult hit, I'd heard nothing but good things, and I went in with an open mind. However, it hardly picks up from there, with the cliché 'typewriter' text exposition that not only hands us the first third of the plot, but continues to needlessly label every scene change for the next few minutes.
We're introduced to the generally bland crew of the rescue ship Lewis and Clarke, some of whom have the nerve to rhyme when working at their stations ("Everything's green on my screen, skipper"?). I tried to tell myself that the dialogue wasn't *that* bad, that Fishburne and Neill were still good, even if the rest of the cast was at best mediocre and at worst cringe-worthy. But let me use an example before I stop nit-picking the first thirty minutes of the movie.
This rescue ship is being sent to investigate the disappearance and sudden reappearance of a top-secret vessel, the Event Horizon. They bring along the ship's creator, played by Sam Neill, and he explains the mission to them, telling them the Event Horizon is a ship designed for faster than light travel. One of the crew members asks him to explain how it's possible, and he says it would be too complicated. They insist, so he explains. Then they get mad at him for giving a complicated explanation.
This is *not* good writing, and it's a standard that the rest of the film follows. Without giving too much away, the rest of the movie follows the trials of the crew as they arrive at the Event Horizon. Here's where it earns three stars: the set design. The Gothic interior of the ship is beautifully crafted, although you'll have to forgive how un-practical it is (and for a state of the art space ship, you'd want things as simple and practical as possible). I did, just because the art direction was so good. The absurdity of the ship's design never affects the plot or characters, so it really has nothing against it.
Then there's the story, which loses coherence in proportion to the crew's sanity. By the end of the movie, there's not much sanity, and there's not much coherence. The obvious comic relief character plays a ridiculously major role, tension is sacrificed in favor of cheap, blood-soaked imagery, and religious references are as unwelcome as they are cheesy. You might laugh, like I did, at the villain and his motivation/appearance. At one point, the makeup on his head makes him look like a puppet. And maybe this is just because I'm not a horror regular, but the use of the word 'evil' killed any credibility or meaning that the later revelations about the Event Horizon might have had. It becomes a gore-fest, with some serious over-use of blood to try and convince you that it's 'scary'.
More blood does not make a better movie. It didn't make a better movie out of Event Horizon, and maybe if Paul Anderson had realized that while he was busy planning the fist fight (yes, there's actually a fist fight.) then it could have tapped its potential. This could have been a great psychological thriller, if they had taken more pages from H.P. Lovecraft and hired a more competent screenwriter. Believe the negative reviews, unless you're willing to forgive the problems above, or if you're one of the many people who *does* think more blood makes a better movie.