A disturbing sci-fi horror

Rating: 8/10 (13 November 2012)

The Spaceship 'Event Horizon' disappeared near Neptune while on a classified mission to test a new drive system that could make interstellar travel a possibility; seven years later a broadcast was received and the rescue ship 'Lewis and Clark'. This ship's regular crew has been joined by Dr. Weir; the designer of the 'Event Horizon' and the only person to know the nature of the ship's revolutionary drive system; it uses a singularity to fold space enabling it to pass between two points almost instantly. Strange things start to happen once they arrive; scanners show lifeforms everywhere on the 'Event Horizon' and once aboard the crew start having strange visions of people they once knew; dead people! It would appear that that when the gateway opened for its test flight to Proxima Centauri it went somewhere on the way; a place of pure chaos and evil; for want of a better word Hell itself! By the time the crew realises something is wrong; it isn't a question of whether they whether get away alive it is a question of whether any of them will survive.
This sci-fi horror deserves to be better known; there may not be an alien aboard the ship but the strange presence is just as frightening; especially when the crew have visions that involve eyeless loved ones. For a film that isn't that well known it has a surprisingly strong cast of well known actors including Lawrence Fishburne, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs and Sean Pertwee amongst the crew; they all put in solid performances although it is Sam Neill who puts in the most memorable performance as Dr. Weir; a character that becomes more dangerous as time passes; whether he is going insane or becoming possessed by the evil controlling the ship is hard to say. They is a lot of disturbing imagery here; both when we see what happened to the old crew of the 'Event Horizon' and when things start going bad for the rescue team; if you don't like the sight of blood you'd best give this a miss but if you want a genuinely creepy sci-fi horror you could do a lot worse.