Event Horizon

Plot synopsis:
In the near future, humanity has successfully colonized the Moon and other planets, and is venturing deeper into space. In the year 2047, a signal from the starship Event Horizon is picked up on Earth. The ship had disappeared without trace beyond the planet Neptune in 2040; her loss was considered the worst space disaster on record, with her entire 18-person crew missing and presumed dead. The ship has suddenly reappeared in a decaying orbit around Neptune at the outer rim of the solar system, more than three billion kilometers from the nearest outpost on Saturn's moon Titan. The Event Horizon's designer, Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill), who is staying on a space station orbiting Earth and is tormented by the memory of his dead wife, receives a call that he has to report to the station's dock.The rescue ship Lewis and Clark, commanded by Capt. Miller (Laurence Fishburne), is dispatched to investigate, with Dr. Weir coming along. Aboard the ship, there is very little time to socialize, as most team members were hastily pulled out of shore leave for this mission. The crew is put into stasis due to the immense G-forces released during the flight to Neptune. While in stasis, widower Dr. Weir has a very lively nightmare of waking up and finding his late wife Claire (Holley Chant) on the ship's bridge with no eyes, which is interrupted when the Lewis and Clark arrives and he is awoken from stasis. After getting ready, the crew is informed by Dr. Weir that their mission is to salvage the Event Horizon. He explains that the ship was actually built by the government to test a secret, experimental faster-than-light gravity drive. The drive would create an artificial black hole to bridge two points in space to significantly reduce journey time. The ship had been on its initial test flight, intended to reach Proxima Centauri; it subsequently vanished without a trace, and a cover story of the ship being destroyed was given to the public. Weir plays for the crew the only transmission received since the ship's reappearance, which is a series of garbled, confusing and intensely disturbing screams and shouts. A human voice that was embedded in the transmission was filtered from the recording. Medic D.J. (Jason Isaacs) identifies it as a Latin phrase, "liberate me" ("save me").Upon approaching the drifting vessel, X.O. Starck (Joely Richardson) tries to contact the ship, but there is no response. After a short fly-over, the Lewis and Clark docks with the Horizon. Sensors indicate the artificial gravity is off-line, as well as the climate system. No definitive trace of human life is found; these inconclusive sensor readings lead Captain Miller, Engineer Justin (Jack Noseworthy) and Medical Tech Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) to board the Horizon in space suits to search for survivors. They enter via the ship's main corridor, which separates the two parts of the ship. It is lined with explosives as an emergency measure: in case of a catastrophe, the explosives will split the ship in two, separating the engine room with the gravity drive from the forward section, which is to be used as an escape vessel. In the corridor, the team splits up: Peters proceeds to the bridge, where she discovers a mutilated and frozen human corpse floating, with both eyes gouged out. She successfully retrieves some of the on-board transmissions. Justin enters the ship's gravity core. It consists of an orb with rotating circles around it, with a pool of water below. Upon entering, the lights suddenly turn on, and the orb seems to open, revealing a black, liquid-like mirror within; it sucks Justin inside as he touches it, and emits a large gravity shock wave, damaging the Clark. Rescue Tech Cooper (Richard T. Jones) manages to pull Justin out of the core by his tether, but he emerges catatonic. The crew manages to restore the climate system and artificial gravity, which immediately causes the frozen corpse on the bridges to fall down and shatter; Justin is brought to the medical bay. Weir maintains that the gravity drive could never have activated by itself, but Miller declares the drive off-limits for the entire crew.There is no trace of the former crew, save from the corpse, and what seems to be human bones and tissue lining the windows as a macabre decoration. With the Clark heavily damaged, the remaining crew has no choice but to transfer to the Horizon, which only contains 20 hours of usable oxygen. Pilot Smith (Sean Pertwee) voices his concern that there is something very wrong with the Horizon, and refuses to stay on board longer than necessary. He and Cooper start working on repairs on the outside. Soon afterwards, the rescuers begin to experience strange sightings. In the medical bay, Peters sees images of her son Denny (Barclay Wright), whom she had to leave with her ex-husband: his legs are covered in bloody lesions. She finds a video log of the crew happily preparing for the journey, which is abruptly followed by a log with scrambled images; however, the audio is unmistakably the disturbing sound from the ship's last transmission. She will try to clear it up, but there is a sudden power drain. Justin suddenly starts to convulse, and rambles that 'the dark' is coming. Weir and Miller go to the gravity drive, and Weir enters a compartment to fix the power, but he sees his wife again without her eyes, urging him to join her. In the meanwhile, Miller sees a burning man rising from the water pool below the gravity drive.The team members discuss the hallucinations; Miller believes them to be real manifestations and not imaginary. Smith lashes out at Weir, stating that by creating a ship that defies the laws of nature, he has unleashed something unnatural that killed the first crew. The rest subdue him, and Miller orders him to resume the repairs outside. Starck then confronts Miller with an outrageous theory: she thinks that the Event Horizon has become a living entity itself; like an immune system, it is showing an increasing response to the foreign human presence, by causing hallucinations of increasing intensity.A short time later, Peters notices that Justin has emerged from his catatonia and left the medical bay. Suddenly, there is another power drain followed by loud bangs. Several crew members witness how a door is dented by an unseen force. Weir attempts to open it, but is stopped by Starck. Then an alarm goes off: Justin is standing in an air lock, and attempts suicide by ejecting himself into space without a space suit, saying he is tormented by horrific images he saw of "the dark inside me" when he was inside the ship's gravity core. Although Justin snaps out of his trance, the ejection procedure cannot be stopped. The airlock opens and Justin is released into space. Captain Miller, who was overseeing the repairs outside, arrives in a space suit just in time to pull him back in, but Justin is seriously injured due to the decompression, and put in stasis. Weir seems unshaken by the events.With only 4 hours of breathable air left, Miller demands answers from Weir about what is causing the manifestations and Justin's behavior, but Weir doesn't know, nor does he have any idea where the ship exactly went and stayed for the past 7 years. Miller leaves and experiences more hallucinations, hearing the cries for help of a subordinate he was forced to abandon in a fire on an earlier mission. It appears that the Event Horizon has returned with a supernatural presence which is using its occupants' personal torments against them. D.J. hears Miller's story, and says he listened to the original recording again; he now believes he was mistaken the first time: it actually says "liberate tutame ex inferis" ("save yourself from Hell"). D.J. actually believes that although the ship's drive successfully opened a gateway in space-time, it actually led outside the known universe and into another dimension, which must be close to the human concept of 'hell'.The scrambled video log is reconstructed; to the crew's horror, it shows the original crew engaging in a frenzy of torture, self-mutilation, cannibalism and sodomy, minutes after activating the gravity drive. The ship's senior officer, Cpt. Kilpack, is seen uttering the Latin message holding his own eyes in his hands. With the Lewis and Clark now repaired by Smith and Cooper, Miller decides to abandon the Horizon immediately and destroy it, despite the strong objections of Weir, who wants to stay, saying that he is 'already home', and leaves.Smith and Peters prepare to evacuate by collecting all the Event Horizon's remaining oxygen filters at the gravity core. Smith leaves as quickly as possible, but Peters is lured back in when she sees her son. She follows him to the upper level, and is led to her death by plummeting down a shaft as a result of being tricked by the manifestation of her son. Weir, having abandoned the crew and arriving at the core, discovers her body. He suddenly sees a vision of his wife, who committed suicide because she was lonely and he was never around. Stricken by grief and guilt, Weir is compelled by her reanimated form to return to the "hell" dimension, and to tear out his own eyes.Miller is walking the main corridor when he notices one of the explosives missing. He warns Smith over the com to be on the lookout for Weir. Smith, who is aboard the Lewis and Clark, sees Weir leaving. Suspecting that Weir may have put the bomb aboard the Clark, he feverishly tries to save his ship, but finds the bomb with only a few seconds left on the counter. Just as Miller arrives near the docking port, the Clark explodes, killing Smith and causing Cooper, who was still outside on the ship's hull, to be thrown into space. Miller grabs one of the bolt guns used to repair the Clark, and warns D.J. over the com to look for Weir and kill him, if possible. However, Weir gets the drop on D.J. and kills him by vivisection, leaving him suspended from the ceiling of the medical facility.Miller finds D.J.'s corpse, and continues to look for Starck. He finds her unconscious on the bridge and leaves the gun, but discovers that Weir is waiting there for him as well. Seemingly possessed by the evil presence on board, Weir threatens them with the bolt gun, saying the ship became "alive" when it went to a dimension of "pure chaos, pure evil". He activates the ship's gravity drive, beginning a ten-minute countdown, after which the Horizon will return to the chaos/Hell dimension with her new crew. Cooper, having used his space suit's oxygen to propel him back to the ship, emerges outside one of the windows and causes Weir to shoot it. The bridge rapidly decompresses, and Weir is sucked into space towards his apparent death, while Miller and Starck barely escape from the bridge before it is sealed.With Cooper back on board, the three survivors decide to implement the emergency plan by blowing up the ship's corridor and using its forward section as escape vessel. Starck and Cooper start making preparations in the forward section, when the stasis tank is suddenly filled with blood and ruptures, flooding them with a tsunami of blood. Miller arms all of the explosives in the central corridor and recovers the detonator for them, but he is suddenly trapped by a burning manifestation of his former comrade, and is forced to escape into the ship's gravity core.Inside the core, Miller again sees the vision of his comrade, which then changes into a scarred Dr. Weir (with eyes restored). Weir explains that the ship saved him and pulled him back inside. The ship is going back and it won't allow any of the humans to escape. The two fight, but Weir is practically invulnerable. He viciously beats Miller and shows him scenes of the Lewis and Clark's remaining crew being horribly tortured and mutilated. Miller begs Weir to take only him and spare the others, but Weir refuses, stating they all must go. Despite the horrible visions, Miller is eventually able to reach the detonator, which he then triggers, sacrificing himself. Weir screams, being denied the surviving crew. The bombs explode and split the ship in two. The gravity drive then activates, pulling the rear of the ship into a wormhole, taking Weir and Miller with it. Starck and Cooper can only watch helplessly from a distance. With a wounded and comatose Justin, they place themselves into stasis for the return to Earth.72 days later, the forward section reaches Earth. Starck is the first to be awakened by a rescue team member; however, when he removes his helmet visor, it turns out to be a mutilated Dr. Weir. Starck suddenly wakes up in a distraught state, revealing she was having a nightmare; they have been awakened by a real rescue team. Cooper restrains Starck, as one of the rescuers calls for a sedative. But then, the automated hatch leading to the stasis chamber mysteriously seals shut behind the rescuers, implying the supernatural force is inherent to the ship and not dependent on the gravity drive.

Tags: dark, gothic, cult, alternate reality, violence, horror, haunting, flashback, insanity, suspenseful, sadist

Review:
While some of the ideas behind the science are absurd, that is why it's called science-"fiction".The cast does a good job in their roles, and the setting for the movie is dark, creepy, and perfectly done.I have read several bad reviews in these comments, and I have seen basically two categories of such.
James Cameron and Ridley Scott reached this level of brilliance in the Alien films and David Fincher with Seven.I've seen this movie over 20 times.
EVENT HORIZON is a pretty good sci-fi/horror movie which you'll either love or hate.
Perhaps the continuing terror is why some people probably dislike it.As far as I know, most horror movies lack a decent story or decent acting or character development.
But Event Horizon has an interesting story that is an ideal and most of all original environment for a horror movie.
Ranging from an external view of the gigantic Event Horizon around Neptune to Dr. Weir and his 'HANDywork' with his eyes.In my opinion, this is a good but underrated sci-fi horror movie with lots of freaky moments that will keep your heart racing.
If you rather have happy endings and laughs, you'll probably dislike it.For the best experience, watch this movie in a dark room at night or even past midnight with the volume turned up a bit over the normal setting.Rated 7/10 on IMDb, but I personally would give it a 7.5/10..
I was 35 when I first saw this movie; after it had finished I felt like I was 10 years old and had just finished watching an old scratchy B&W werewolf flick.It had been so long since I had truly been disturbed in a scared way I'd almost forgotten what it felt like.
To this day, "Event Horizon" is THE scariest horror science fiction film i have ever witnessed!I was 14 years old when I first watched this film on video and to put it lightly...it scared the shiz out of me!
Horror films now are especially ridiculous as that "Saw" series (when will it end?) is just silly and repetitive which is a shame as the first film is a pretty descent thriller, which seems to be another problem for horror films is that there are too many sequels with each film becoming further and further detached from the original making the whole premise and idea of the film pointless and boring.Which is exactly the reason "Event Horizon" works.
The story is good enough to keep the viewers attention and adrenaline pumping and the special effects have held up surprisingly well for a film that was filmed back in 1997.I really wish there was a Director's cut edition of this film.If you've seen this film and you were not frightened...you are either really warped, lying, or talked all the way through it.
i suggest a re-watch by yourself with the lights off and all other distractions (laptop, cellphone) switched off as well and just sit and watch...I guarantee fear will gnaw at you eventually.And if you enjoyed this film, you should also check out "Pandorum" as it is also fairly good, though not quite in the same league as "Event Horizon"."Liberate tutame...ex inferis.".
I'm not a fan of horror movies not because they scare me but because of reused clichés and cliché characters.It might not seem like a very important movie based on ratings or it's own trailer but I felt there was a great mix of atmosphere ,survival, horror, suspense with Sci/Fi bridging a gap to a touch of super natural(depends on how you view the outcome as it could just be Sci/Fi only) I felt the movie didn't go crazy with jump scares , it creeped me out but provided an entertaining premise as well.
The film starts well, and is enjoyable up until right after the crew boards the Event Horizon.After that, it degenerates into a bad copy of several well-known horror films, which all have better gore scenes.
The plot disappears in quasi-religious babble, and the impression of a good sci-fi movie disappears.While the first part of the film was good, I was very disappointed by the conclusion..
I had extremely low expectations for "Event Horizon".The film was made in a period where a lot of filmmakers thought that when you have enough money to use and abuse CGI your movie doesn't need a decent script.With that in mind I thought "Event Horizon" was going to be a cliché horror film that makes no effort to build suspense and just throws CG blood and gore in your face.I was wrong.Dead wrong."Event Horizon" is the creepiest and most suspenseful horror movie I have ever seen.It manages to create a feeling of dread and foreboding like no other film I have ever seen before.This is due to a combination of great camera-work,appropriate music and(believe it or not) CG.Yes,the CGI is actually used appropriately here,not just added for the sake of it being there.That said,the special effects are top-notch(for 1997).Another thing I liked was that the ship itself wasn't the main threat.It was the characters.They become obsessed with their past mistakes(things they had locked away in their minds and didn't want to remember) and that begins to drive them insane.True,the ship is the catalyst for this,but the focus is more on the characters themselves.This reminds me of "Cube"-one of my favorite movies.The characters themselves are a bit underdeveloped,but they aren't cannon fodder like in many other horror films.Each of them has their the distinct personality and background information is given about some of them.I think this was alright for the purpose of this film.In my opinion ,if they did add more character development it would have ruined the pacing."Event Horizon" is a very well made,but sadly underrated, horror movie.I strongly recommend it..
Sci-Fi/horror film with creepy images and eerie events when a motley crew investigates a rare aircraft.
When the big "secret" of the Event Horizon was revealed, it was so insultingly stupid that I couldn't believe the filmaker had the nerve to toss it up there on the screen.The film looks pretty cool-the interiors of the spaceship were based on a cathedral, but other than that, there's really nothing to suggest it..
This movie feels like a random collection of images and plot fragments: 2010: Odyssey II and Aliens (Boarding mysteriously deserted spaceship), The "Doom" and "Quake" video games: (Experimental warp technology linking spaceship to hell), Large baffling sphere (Crichton's novel "Sphere"), and numerous other betrayals point to a lack of original imagination.
A warning therefore, if you're the slightest bit squeemish or easily disturbed, don't even think about watching this movie, just stay clear of it.It is genuinely gory and terrifying all the way through, but there is one moment which is simply unbelievable, where they access the ship's video logs and see what happened to the crew.
I have ever seen, this flick belong's alongside other crappy sci-fi horror fare such as Leviathan the plot is preposterous who ever wrote it should be fired on the spot you can see the ending coming a mile away.You have to be insane to know that it's one of those hell movies it just plain sucks.
What it turns into is at best a "B" movie with a lot of blood, gore and splatter which are a bad diversion from the screenplay and the script which are at times absolutely woeful.
The ship is so abstract it looks like one of those play places at McDonalds or something, not a bearer of doom that the movie expects you to think of it as.Why does EVERY sci-fi movie have to rip-off Medline L'Engle's book A Wrinkle In Time, then think it's the first movie to come up with the idea?
What I don't understand is why EVERY sci-fi movie can't think of something even slightly new instead of using the same old tired cliché and acting as if it's the first time we ever heard it.There were at least 5 wake-up-and-it's-just-a-dream sequences in this movie, and every time they just get cheesier and cheesier.I'm not even sure there is more for me to complain about because all that is fresh in my mind is how cheesy Event Horizon was.
But for someone like me who is spoiled by truly good sci-fi/horror movies, like Alien, I simply can't take this seriously.
I've seen bad movies but never had the feeling of being cheated like I did leaving this movie.Interesting concept, good special effects, horrible acting and an even worse script.You couldn't pay me to sit through this movie again..
That said it still has creepy bits and good bits.The problem is that it doesn't all work and what you're left with is a very gory movie with lots of cool stuff happening visually but not much substance plot wise.
Story about a lost ship and a technology to challenge space-time fabric by fabricating its own black hole should definitely look interesting for a SciFi movie plot, however, as the story evolves you start getting that bad impression that you were deceived.
Suddenly you are struck by the terrible truth: this is just a pseudo-science fiction movie with an horrible plot that looks like a bad hellraiser imitation.
There is absolutely nothing connected to black holes and their event horizons -- it goes on with bizarre situations like some of the characters breathing on outer space after being exposed to a breach in the spacecraft.
Take a pass and instead watch these three GOOD movies, from which all the clichés in this travesty were boiled down: Alien, The Shining, and Hellraiser.On the other hand, if you would like to experience a textbook example of everything despicable about commercial feature film production these days, this is it (except for merchandising, but I don't think they make bobbleheads with bleeding eyeless sockets).
Every line, every gesture, every scary sound effect or face popping up in the dark.This movie is a gateway to film hell...or hilarity, if you decide to approach it that way (the only possible way to sit through it)..
I will not be scared the second time watching the movie.Third impression: Trying to get some feel from Alien2 with the tough soldiers etc.
I mean Dante imagined such Hell hundreds of years ago.Finally if we exclude the excellent room of the space drive, the rest of the sets looked a little on the cheap side.Not one of my favorite movies despite the high expectations from Fishburne and Neill..
Quite strange for a epic sci-fi horror.It turns out that Paul Anderson thought he was directing a movie that would be as revolutionary as Ridley Scott's Alien was back in 1979 and when he turned in his first 130-minute cut of the film it was painfully obvious that his effort and ability to make a solid horror film were sorely lacking.
Over the years Paul Anderson has blamed the studio for the film being a tedious bore but it's all down to him and his approach to this lame material which is full of the easiest, EASIEST stinger scares, weak direction, and a superficially ambiguous script that he thought he could go all out with.Even with very low expectations of Hellraiser/Haunted House/Generic Slasher-in-Space tropes you'll consider doing the dishes or the ironing before the movie is halfway over..
As this trash progresses the viewer is subjected to a non-sensical plot that is ripped off from Michael Crichton's "Sphere" and from the "Hellraiser" series of (bad) horror films.Don't waste your money or your time.
Event Horizon has to be one of the poorest excuses for a science fiction or horror movie around.
It makes Lost In Space look like a good movie.
After '2001' and 'Alien' had shown the possibilities for modern Sci-Fi, 'Event Horizon' is a severe disappointment which gives the entire genre a bad name..
Despite a talented cast, great production design and some awesome special effect scenes (the opening shot of the space station in Earth orbit made my vertigo kick in!), this is a very disappointing film.Taken as a straightforward horror movie, it delivers some unsettling shocks to begin with but quickly moves into "guessing who's gonna die next" territory.
As a sci-fi film, it could have been so much more complex and involving, but the lazy "All Black Holes lead to Hell" premise slams the door on a more imaginative explanation of the original Event Horizon crew's bizarre behaviour and messy deaths.
I watched the film until the end - hoping that it would get better - but I reckon that most of the budget went on the wonderful production design and the wages for the talented cast.I'd be interested to see a Director's Cut (if Paul Anderson ever releases one) but it would have to be a lot more like "Solaris" or the first of the "Hellraiser" films for me to recommend it..
At first glance Event Horizon seems like a very scary sci-fi tale with good special effects.
Someone gave Paul Anderson a dumptruck full of money and said "Recreate Alien."He failed.I was encouraged to watch this movie by a friend, who described it as the most disturbing film he'd ever seen.
I think horror films like these a really cool but not that scary.
I consider myself a fan of horror and sci-fi movies, so when I went into the theater to watch this movie, I had good expectations for this film.Nice visual effects, and a few moments of crude humor, but it is overshadowed by the appalling lack of quality in the plot.
Once I started watching, In some respects, this film started to remind me of "Alien," except it obviously wound up quite a bit inferior to that famous sci-fi-horror thriller.Since it was made about 18 years after "Alien," this movie features more special-effects and some high-tech visuals but it doesn't have the suspense nor the overall cinematography nor the cohesive storyline of the latter.
Use really unique horror devices, like phantom kids running around on a space ship, (Is the lead female character so blatantly stupid that she can't remember she's on a spaceship and she didn't bring along the kids?), Sam Neil in one scene holding his eyeballs in his hands and in a later scene they're back in his head.(Must have a really spiffy demon surgeon onboard.) This movie, to put it bluntly, just stunk, should never have been made and I should have been paid to watch this crap..
Event Horizon is a spooky horror thriller with some flaws from director Paul W.S. Anderson whose admirable in making this movie about a rescue crew investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned with someone or something on board lurking in the shadows waiting for it's chance to strike.
Neill's character was right when he says, "hell is just a word the reality is much much worse." Well his character was definitely right which doesn't mean good news for Laurence Fishburne and his rescue team who have responded to Event Horizon's distress beacon.
Despite some flaws Event Horizon is still a decent horror thriller with enough gruesome deaths, suspense, and good performances by the cast that's sure to please most fans of the genre..
Finally, the film just disintegrated into gross-out tactics, throwing bloody people meat into your face.I think the tagline is "Infinite space...Infinite horror."  The only things infinitely horrifying are this movie's stupidity and its incredible waste of money on special effects..
I saw "Event Horizon" on video, and I'm thanking myself for not having wasted even more money seeing it at the cinema, while at the same time I'm rebuking myself for having been daft enough to fall for it.The movie is so bad that just by describing what is wrong with it you are already giving it more attention it deserves.
Event Horizon is about the last movie you should ever watch.
"Event Horizon" doesn't know the difference between scary, startling, and sickening.But what makes the film really bad is the complete absence of characterisation.
If Anderson is good at anything, it's making things look real.Event Horizon had a lot of potential.
Except for the big-budget special effects, this movie made about as much sense as B-movies of old, including more recent schlock like 'Nightflyers' and 'Galaxy of Terror' and, believe it or not, actually may have had less character development than those movies.In the end, I wanted to rip my eyes out, too, after watching this monstrous waste of perfectly good celluloid stock..
Anderson hints in interviews that the film needed to be rushed due to studio pressure and since a lot of footage has apparently been lost, no true "director's cut" will ever do it proper justice.What we are left with is a movie that is too entertaining to pass, especially for fans of horror and sci-fi.
I thought this was a science fiction flick, but as the movie went on it became clear it was a horror movie, and the most gory kind at that, which is surprising because it had a decent cast who've been in some great films.Personally I don't mind scary movies but when the main idea is to revolt me I don't appreciate it.
It's the reason I keep watching every horror movie set in space I can find.
I can imagine that "Event Horizon" has a scary effect in the cinema, but watching it home alone made me probably feel more shocked then ever before.
It scared the hell out of me..For those of you who saw "Ghost Ship", this movie has a lot of similarities, only "Event Horizon" is way better.
I don't think I've ever seen a worse movie than Event Horizon.
I liked the beginning when it was "The Shining in space," but I was less impressed when it turned into "Hellraiser in space." In the end, this movie seems to rely more on shock and terror than suspenseful horror, which is disappointing - it had the potential to be an intelligent thriller..