Review of Event Horizon (1997) by Brosman — 10 Jan 2014

The biggest problem with this movie is that it is all build up with no bang. Imagine staring at a bomb. You watch the bomb's timer count down from 10 and as the counter reaches 0, nothing happens. The bomb doesn't detonate and you go about your day.

If you pardon this weak analogy, it is actually a perfect comparison to this film. Every time something tense happens there is no payoff. Its all build up to nothing. For example while avoiding spoilers, a character will be in a room of the ship and they get the feeling of being watched.

They snoop around for five minutes and nothing happens. Its extremely annoying and makes the entire film lack any sense of dread as you know no matter what you think will happen, nothing will. On top of that characters all act stupid, as they ignore things imperative to their survival that have had explained to them.

One of the characters is so stupid that I was actually glad that they died. Only a few deaths seem to feel authentic to something that would actually happen in the given situation. Most of them however seem fabricated by "horror movie syndrome" with people acting stupid just so we can watch them die.

So along with stupid characters, and weak horror aspects my biggest gripe with this film is of how much wasted potential it had. At the beginning the movie was giving Dead Space vibes. This is nothing short of a good thing as DS is one of my favorite video games series ever.

But as it progressed what seemed like a movie that was going to be DS or Aliens-like slowly turned into a House on Haunted Hill (the 1999 version), IN SPAAAAACCCCEEE! I do not recommend this film. Although the atmosphere is amazing and the acting is actually pretty good, halfway through the film it just turned into a different movie.

A stupid one.