Event Horizon

Scott Hardie: “It was ok.”

It says online that this movie went through studio meddling that toned down the violence and gore quite a bit, much to the director's frustration. That so many reviews still complain of too much violence and gore in the finished product does not speak well of the director's mental state. (He went on to make the execrable Resident Evil film series, so I don't hold him in the highest regard.)

Gore aside, I really liked this movie's sense of style, with its 45-second twirling shots of ginormous space stations, and its flickering lighting barely illuminating vast chambers with airborne debris floating around in zero-gravity. The visual flair alone would have been enough to recommend the movie, if the script were not so dumb in its other elements. Like any horror movie, otherwise smart people have to do really dumb things in order for the plot to progress. One supporting character is a jive-talking racist stereotype, especially toward the end. There are, shall we say nicely, artistic liberties taken with physics and biology.

The script's biggest problem is its obsession with Hell: The ship's wormhole drive took it to an unknown dimension and back, which causes madness and depravity and chaos. By pinning the specific label of Hell on that place, the film brings in preconceived notions and a lot of baggage. A better idea would have been to keep the other dimension unknown and alien but still maddening and deadly, giving the movie a much more potent Lovecraftian fear of the unknown. But I guess the director wanted his orgy of blood-drenched human-on-human violence, and it's a shame that he let his bloodthirst get in the way of making a better movie. In this case, the studio meddling was right.This review contains spoilers. Reveal it.

− March 22, 2015 • more by Scott • log in or create an account to reply