Falling outside of the cracks

Rating: 5/10 (14 March 2014)

Event Horizon put me in mind of two other movies, Alien, of course, and Forbidden Planet. You have a crew made up of people who are clearly British as well as American so things are pretty international by the year 2047. Either that, or the redoubtable Jason Isaacs and the adorable Sean Pertwee are incapable of doing American accents; somehow I think it's the former. They all board a ship that has been missing for seven years and so naturally we're wondering what kind of Alien-like surprise they're going to get.
The movie was wonderful and on the brink of terrifying up to the halfway mark. I was asking myself why I had barely ever heard of it until the second half when we get into the Forbidden Planet version of things. I'm not sure if I can say this is completely Forbidden Planet as what lurks within may come not just from man's own delusions but whence those spring. But somehow this movie does not deliver on that side. I was enjoying some reviews on the platform on which I saw the movie, Netflix, and there as well as in places here people discussed how terrified they were by the movie's dark implications particularly when young; one person said Event Horizon "destroyed my childhood." Possibly then its ultimate theme speaks best to the beautifully naive among us where the truth touches a core.
I will say, Forbidden Planet destroyed my childhood, or at least my walks to school. Trying not to give anything away, but somehow the symbol of evil in that one transmogrified to huge dinosaurs dogging my every step; I kept turning around expecting a tyrannosaurus rex rearing up on the horizon. I was also terrified of brontosauri but was told they were only herbivores, although I suppose being stepped on by one would not be fun either. Anyway, I think Forbidden Planet was a far more effective film than Event Horizon -- and to those who love Forbidden Planet, please forgive me if I am way off in comparing the two -- and that is why so few of us know about Event Horizon. As many have said here it could essentially be classified as a horror film, with comparisons, say, to even The Shining and others. I know there is a film I have seen recently which garnered the same reception of, "It's really scary when you think of the deeper implications." I think that may have been the David Caruso cult classic Session 9; oh, another one you hadn't heard of before either? It's worth checking out. I would half, er, have to leave my recommendation on Event Horizon at the halfway mark. It's worth a check out if only for its place in sci-fi or quasi history. Grab your partner and your popcorn because you're in for a ride. But you'll probably have no trouble sleeping.
By the way ... Jason Isaacs is adorable, too. But it wasn't until I caught him in Sweetwater on Netflix that I began to look for he-of-the-impossibly-clear-eyes elsewhere and thus came to Event Horizon. Now there's someone about whom I have to ask ... why I had I never heard of him before?