Underrated-As-Hell Sci Fi/Horror Hybrid

Rating: 7/10 (13 September 2010)

"Event Horizon" came into theatres in 1997 without much fanfare and disappeared in about a week, but when I rented it on video (back in the VHS days) I found it to be a very enjoyable blend of science fiction and horror with great special effects and set design, creepy atmosphere to spare, and decent performances from veteran character actors like Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne. Why wasn't this movie better promoted? Over the years it's slowly been developing a well deserved cult following, as more and more people discover this underrated gem. I just picked up the 2-DVD "Collector's Edition" of the film and after viewing it I am pleased to report that "Event Horizon" is still holding up well.
"EH" tends to get comparisons like "The Shining in space" or "A combination of Alien and The Exorcist," none of which are entirely accurate, yet the influence of all of those films (plus many more) are definitely part of "Event Horizon's" DNA. The film I immediately think of is 1979's "The Black Hole," which also revolved around a group of space explorers discovering the derelict hulk of a long-lost space ship, but once our intrepid crew is on board the title craft the film turns into something akin to "Hellraiser" more than anything else.
Our story: it's 2047 and the mammoth space ship "Event Horizon," which disappeared without a trace seven years earlier on a mission to the outer reaches of the Universe, has suddenly reappeared in an orbit around Neptune. A rescue crew is dispatched headed by Laurence Fishburne (whose Shakespearean voice can make even the most empty headed science-fiction techno-jargon dialogue sound deep and meaningful) and Sam Neill, the scientist who designed and built the Event Horizon. He's especially proud of its more-or-less-theoretical "gravity drive," which supposedly can travel through dimensions via a "gateway" that had never been attempted before. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that traveling through this supposed "gateway" is going to be the core of the movie. Once on board the Event Horizon, they find no survivors, just a lot of blood splattered on the walls and an occasional frozen, mutilated corpse drifting past in zero-gravity. It quickly becomes obvious that something horrible happened to the Event Horizon when it left our universe, and as the crew explores the ship it also seems that the craft brought something back WITH them from that trip, which wants all of their souls. One by one the crewmen are plagued with visions of hellish torture, or of traumatic events from their own pasts, and several of them meet gory deaths until the survivors realize that they must get off this ship as quickly as possible, before the evil possessing it claims them all as victims.
The real star of the movie is the set designer (whoever he or she was; fantastic job!), the "Event Horizon" resembles a hellish cathedral of some sort (even before the evil sets in) that will make the viewer uncomfortable from the get-go. Of the human cast, Sam Neill gets to have the most fun, as he is eventually taken over by the horror of his creation and goes all Interstellar Jack Torrance on the innocent salvage crew.
Judging from the reviews on this site, "Event Horizon" is either a "love it" or "hate it" kind of film. You can count me as one who loved it, and I will definitely be watching it again in the future. Too bad director Paul Anderson has yet to live up to the promise he showed in this movie.