FILM REVIEW: EVENT HORIZON BY JOE X YOUNG

This is another one of those ‘Marmite’ films which it appears people either love or they hate, and one which I hadn’t seen since it was first released at the cinema in 1997 so I didn’t remember a whole lot about it except that for some reason I didn’t think much of it at the time.

Having recently bought a DVD and Blu-ray collection, it contained the DVD Steelbook version of Event Horizon so I was good to go for a second viewing. I’ve been hearing and reading so many people discussing the brilliance of this film I think it was about time I check it out, so with much anticipation I popped the Blu-ray into the machine and sat back waiting to be impressed. Going to say straight start that I was not really impressed with it, there’s a lot going for it but just as much going against it as it hasn’t aged well. What was, back then, probably state-of-the-art special effects look very poor on Blu-ray conversion, so poor at the start of the film that it looked more like I was watching a 3D movie without glasses. One has to expect a degree of degradation and for things to not be quite so crisp as they were not created for this technology. Looking beyond that issue to the film itself it is undoubtedly well acted, and so it should be as it has some of the best in the business propping it up the likes of Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburn are always good value Mr Neill in particular. The general idea of this film lies in a ‘space rescue mission’ of a ship which vanished during deep space exploration. Truth of the matter is that the spaceship in question the ‘Event Horizon’, has gone beyond all know reaches, into the depths of Hell. Returning as one can only expect, with something less than pleasant on-board, but this isn’t in the form of gestating aliens or marauding monsters, going instead for something alluding to Hell itself.

The director’s intent was probably excellent on paper, the stereotypical bunch of world-weary space travellers teaming up with a rogue scientist and waiting for things to go pear-shaped generally works well, with the team appearing to get on with each other to a greater degree. First indication that things are decidedly dodgy: that of Sam Neill’s character being unknown to the rest of the group. This I always find hard to believe, as I would assume a basic requirement for any team on any mission is that they passed a shed load of tests, several of which would involve personality and mental assessments, physical assessments et cetera as well as some form of compatibility test to ensure that all personnel would at least stand the chance of getting on well, thereby limiting possible conflict. It’s not happening, as some deals scientist informs everyone that the mission they believed they were wrong. Alex as you may gather as many similarly unpopular so with that major plot point exposing into basically pastored it hardly surprising that the token tough guy which in this case is Sean Pertwee once his head on a spike won’t delve too deeply into Wells goes on with plot suffice to say that this is a mixed bag, intentional which is to build an atmosphere as potentially terrifying as Alien was a few years earlier. Unfortunately, although it does generates summer clear it seems to lack the originality of Alien as it really follows a similar pattern hot on the heels of what was a much better film.

Event horizon has all the appearance of the film which is trying far too hard to do what Alien did effortlessly. Obviously, with hell being the actual destination event horizon had visited, as a religious element to the film which should in principle centre around whatever entity returned with the ship, yet there is so much more involvement here as the ship itself is basically a flying crucifix, with much of the design mimicking elements found in cathedrals. At this point I will confess that I am not a religious man, so the whole God things leaves me cold, which is why I find this to be a totally unnecessary aspect of the film. Now I get that the ship has returned from hell, so the logic is that if hell exists so does heaven, so the must be a god et cetera, I have no problem with that. Same with the exorcist, the church fighting demonic possession is a staple of horror films, so I put religion to one side and just go along with the ride, but only when the religious elements makes sense within the world of the plot. To me a crucifix shaped interstellar exploration vessel is every bit as silly as St Exmin’s big busted warship in Battle beyond the stars, or Captain Kremmen’s flying cassette recorder. It’s just a dumb idea and the iconography is way too heavy-handed.
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The cast is excellent with one of those rare occurrences of having no bum notes in the orchestra, each person playing to their strengths admirably. Having said that, this is definitely Sam Neill show, as the generally genial gentleman plays a complete shit who become something far worse. It’s all rather mad, with understated performance giving gravity to his menace.