I was disappointed by "Event Horizon"...

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2007-04-16 03:12am

Event Horizon was one of the movies I checked out from the library, specifically the recent 2-disc reissue, and Uts and I watched it on Saturday night. It's a film that I had been wanting to see for a number of years but never got around to it before now.

Uts noticed how much of the movie could be reproduced by playing Space Station 13.

Overall, I thought it was acceptable, if a rather by-the-numbers sci-fi horror film that's kind of a prime artifact of the late 1990s. Now I haven't watched any of the supplements on the second disc, but I have to admit that I was a little let down by the overall content of the film, mainly because:

1. It wasn't scary (barely even gory).
2. The disturbing content wasn't really disturbing at all.

I've known the basic premise of the film for a while: Lost experimental ship reappears, FTL travel involves going through Hell, blah blah blah. I figured it was probably the closest thing to seeing a cinematic depiction of the effects of traveling through the Warp in WH40K...

...And I didn't get anything remotely close to that. Really, the best they could come up with is a half-dozen people immediately eat/rape each other to death, pull out their eyes, and speak grammatically incorrect Latin? Bah!

I don't know, maybe I expect the movie to slap me a high-five, maybe I just expected something more simply due to what I've seen in other films and read elsewhere, and ended up with a movie that had its plot on autopilot and action on rails. At the least I expected that the "Hell" stuff wouldn't be so...barren and uncreative. Come on, the ship was "alive," they could have gone wild with that alone!

Also, some rather crummy music. The Prodigy's "Funky Shit" for the end credits struck as a bit silly and slightly pretentious...

Anybody else share these sort of sentiments regarding the movie?

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2007-04-16 03:29am

Yeah, I thought it was alright. I was expecting some kind of idiot movie but was pleasantly surprised it was a well-made popcorn movie. They even took the risk of mentioning 'chaos' and nonphysical reality when simply sticking with hell and other dimensions would have sufficed going by the books.

Did you notice the tool they were using as a weapon at the end? It was a bolter.

Get it? Get it?

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-04-16 04:16am

Weird show to say the least. Not a bit scary or disturbing in my opinion, but it did have some eerie feeling to it all.

It feels a lot like an extended version of ... forgot that TV show... Outer Limits?

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2007-04-16 07:27am

I admit a lot of the reason I like Event Horizon as a horror movie is due to 1) nostalgia, having first watched it when I was much younger and thus more easily scared, and 2) it's my kind of horror movie, reliant on sci-fi themes and not indulging in stupid teen horror crap. Plus derelict spaceships scare the piss out of me.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2007-04-16 08:10am

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:1) nostalgia, having first watched it when I was much younger and thus more easily scared,

What were you, eight years old in 1997?

But whatever the case the film doesn't seem that particularly old or dated despite coming out a decade ago, but then again Alien has come out way, way back in 1979 but has aged remarkably well.

Raw Shark · Post by **Raw Shark** » 2007-04-16 08:11am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Anybody else share these sort of sentiments regarding the movie?

Pretty much, but there's also something that I find compelling about the visual style of it... I've never actually set out to watch it, but if somebody else is watching it I usually get sucked in. The exception to this is the lame way they did the "Hell" footage, which always cheapens it for me. Better to not have shown it at all than to make it a Gwar video if they didn't want people to giggle there.

Losonti Tokash · Post by **Losonti Tokash** » 2007-04-16 08:27am

Big Orange wrote:What were you, eight years old in 1997?

As a matter of fact, I was nine. And this is probably the only horror movie that's ever scared me at all. The teen slasher bullshit only pissed me off, but this movie terrified me the first time I saw it.

But I saw it again a month or so ago and it sucks now. Damn my maturing taste in movies.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2007-04-16 08:50am

TBH Spanky I think anticipation may be what ruined it for you. When I saw EH I just went in expecting a popcorn sci-fi movie. Instead I got what at the time where some very innovative and disturbing ideas. I'd never been into 40K but throught a friend I found out the 40K influences and it's what got me interested.

Pax Britannia · Post by **Pax Britannia** » 2007-04-16 10:24am

Looking back on it now it shows what would become P.W. Anderson's defining theme in writing for the next ten years: Some people get trapped somewhere and die trying to escape.

Post by **Dalton** » 2007-04-16 01:02pm

Sam Neill on fire was pretty cool. He was overall good in the flick.

Elessar · Post by **Elessar** » 2007-04-16 01:34pm

Lord Pounder wrote:TBH Spanky I think anticipation may be what ruined it for you. When I saw EH I just went in expecting a popcorn sci-fi movie. Instead I got what at the time where some very innovative and disturbing ideas. I'd never been into 40K but throught a friend I found out the 40K influences and it's what got me interested.

In total agreement here; much of Event Horizon was the sheer surprise that this wasn't just another sci-fi flick, but actually horror in space. Horror movies have an element where if you go in expecting to be scared, you'll likely leave disappointed.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2007-04-16 03:40pm

Dalton wrote:Sam Neill on fire was pretty cool. He was overall good in the flick.

Yeah, he was good, though in hindsight I thought it was talent that ended up going underused.

Spice Runner · Post by **Spice Runner** » 2007-04-16 10:06pm

I watched Even Horizon a few months ago. The movie did seem a bit pretentious with its message that we should not mess with something (in this case FTL) that we do not know much about. Of course FTL is imaginary technology but in the movie they spend an entire scene with the members of the expedition preaching to the scientist about how we are not supposed to screw around the law of physics of try to overcome them because god or whatever omnipotent will smite us. That pissed me off somewhat.

Otherwise I liked the movie. And of course I couldn't sleep after watching it.

Spice Runner · Post by **Spice Runner** » 2007-04-16 10:19pm

Err... pardon my double post but the part I was referring to in the movie didn't have the crew members mentioning god but they were referring to there being dire consequences to messing around with the laws of physics. I suppose that can be interpreted as just being prudent but it seemed a little similar to the mindset of fundies today to me.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2007-04-16 11:20pm

Spice Runner wrote:Err... pardon my double post but the part I was referring to in the movie didn't have the crew members mentioning god but they were referring to there being dire consequences to messing around with the laws of physics. I suppose that can be interpreted as just being prudent but it seemed a little similar to the mindset of fundies today to me.

I disagree that it has anything in common with that sort luddite philosophy, it seems that the crew object more on the grounds of feeling that they were messing around with technology they didn't fully understand. Weir and the others were fairly reckless when you think about it; they created a revolutionary with out really testing it. The Clark's spacers may have overreacted some but I think that can be explained by the jump to a full test ship and crew right away.

Spice Runner · Post by **Spice Runner** » 2007-04-16 11:59pm

I suppose you're right. The crew, particularly Cooper was pretty pissed with the mystery shrouding the dissapeance of the old crew coupled with Weir unwillngness to be straightforward about the technology in the ships core.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2007-04-17 01:16am

Spice Runner wrote:I suppose you're right. The crew, particularly Cooper was pretty pissed with the mystery shrouding the dissapeance of the old crew coupled with Weir unwillngness to be straightforward about the technology in the ships core.

And even leaving aside the whole "open a gateway to hell thing" the results of the test really do speak for themselves. The ship winds up lost, the crew presumed dead, and apparently no smaller scale tests performed. As presented it seems like the whole project went forward rather reckless with out ample consideration for safety or even full understanding of what they were doing.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2007-04-17 01:17pm

Wait a minute...didn't Asimov write a short story involving FTL travel sending the traveller to hell YEARS before Event Horizon?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2007-04-17 06:56pm

One single space marine would have made the entire thing better.

Spice Runner · Post by **Spice Runner** » 2007-04-17 09:56pm

The Dr. Who episodes "Impossible Planet" and "Satan Pit" reminded me of this movie. I can't help but wonder what it would have been like had the good doctor come along for the ride.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2007-04-18 08:01am

Actually I quite liked it. They never really explained exactly completely WHAT happened with the ship, or what that spinning orb thing was in detail. Likewise, the blood and horror was very low key, rather than ZOMG LET US TOP THE LAST TEEN SLASHER FLICK RAR!

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2007-04-18 05:56pm

If it had imps it would have actually made a really good Doom movie.

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2007-04-18 06:01pm

Molyneux wrote:Wait a minute...didn't Asimov write a short story involving FTL travel sending the traveller to hell YEARS before Event Horizon?

Escape, published in I, Robot (and whatever the original name of that book was). Except that when you died and went to Hell you came back alive and well. A bit different.

Yokel on an Island · Post by **Yokel on an Island** » 2007-04-19 04:11am

Sam Neill made the movie reasonably enjoyable for me, because I was never expecting him in the role he did. But that they actually did the hackneyed "OMG NOT OVER!11" ending scene just sums up the film, middling and a bit of a waste of premise.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2007-04-23 05:22pm

I found the crewmembers' remains splattered on the bulkheads a bit of "realistic" nastiness...and the recordings of insane people babbling in Latin while consuming bits of their own bodies truly disturbing.
Jack Noseworthy may be immortalised as the heterosexual hairdresser from Cecil B. Demented in my mind, but I genuinely felt his distress at waking up in an airlock...yikes.

Then again, I had no idea of what it was about until I watched it; that it was supposed to be more horror oriented.

The ship itself was awesome looking.

On the whole I don't rate very highly, but I wouldn't mind seeing it again.