Review of Event Horizon (1997) by Archibald T — 22 Mar 2011

You've heard the story before. A group of astronaut's are sent to recover a spacecraft which had been lost and aboard it is something sinister. It's the usual science fiction fair with a dash of horror involved.

Dr. Weir created the Event Horizon. A spaceship that has a special gift which is it's core. The core of the ship is a spinning ball like reactor. When the three rings for which spin with this ball like invention come together to a stop a mini-black hole is created. This helps the ship to travel faster than the speed of light to any other galaxies in the universe.

When a test run over shoots Horizon's destination, that's when it's found floating near Neptune. The year is 2047 and a team of astronauts who were on leave are stuck having to help Dr. Weir retrieve his spaceship. And to think, they could've had better things to do.

A signal from the event Horizon suggests, from all the screaming, that the original crew didn't have a good time. Once they've found Horizon, they board it to find it a complete mess with very little human activity. Blood and some form of liquid is spread about. One astronaut discovers a dead body, mangled as if it were clawed by an animal. The body shatters to pieces once gravity has been turned on.

When one of the crew discovers the core of the ship, he becomes sucked into it. He comes out of it in a strange catatonic state. His eyes are even black and he talks about how the darkness tells him things. Much of the ship begins to dig into the fears of this crew who are starting to lose their grip on their mental state. Dr. Weir's mental state, however, may already have been gone once getting back to Horizon. "I am Home," he says.

When their fears are unleashed, they begin to drop like flies. Dead flies. Much of it's third act revolves around who ever is remaining to, well, get the hell out of dodge. So to speak. At the core of the Horizon is where much of Hell becomes unleashed and it was pretty spectacular.

The characters aren't very important because not much is made clear about them. Reminded me of the characters in 'Sunshine'. As a matter of fact this film may very well be a distant relative and if I had to chose between which one I wanted to hang out with more I'd choose 'Sunshine'. Although, special effects wise, this film did achieve a great sense of trippy-ness. So that bodes well and even if you don't feel satisfied with it after it's over you can always have those special effects in mind the next time you watch.

Particularly, that decompressing scene where Justin locks himself in the airlock only to be decompressed. That was intense.