Event Horizon
Event Horizon (from Weird and Wonderful II: Fifty More Cult Films by George Hughes, available from freefall-productions.com on 02/11/20)
1997 / US-UK / 96 minutes
“This ship has been beyond the boundaries of our universe, of known scientific reality… No one knows where it’s been, what it’s seen- and what it’s brought back with it…”
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson / Screenplay: Philip Eisner / Director of Photography: Adrian Biddle / Music: Michael Kamen and Orbital / Production: Jeremy Bolt, Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin for Paramount Pictures / Cast: Laurence Fishburne (Miller), Sam Neil (Weir), Kathleen Quinlan (Peters), Joley Richardson (Starck), Richard T. Jones (Cooper), Jack Noseworthy (Justin), Jason Isaacs (D.J.), Sean Pertwee (Smith).
In 1995, British director Paul Anderson (it would be a couple of years until the rise of Paul Thomas Anderson necessitated him always having to add his middle initials to his credit) made what is still the only half- decent video game to movie adaptation ever with his incredibly silly but undeniably entertaining US debut, Mortal Kombat.
Immediately offered the sequel (that eventually emerged as the cut price rush job Mortal Kombat: Annihilation in 1997) and what would eventually become Bryan Singer’s first X- Men film (2000), Anderson instead chose to go in a very different direction and stayed in the UK to make Event Horizon. On the face of it, a routine Sci- Fi search and rescue mission in space story, Event Horizon would be one of the last major films to get away with pulling a genuinely shocking genre switch on audiences.
Released in late ’97 when the internet was still just for those few with the money, training and- most crucially- patience for its early days, this was a mid- budget film that arrived in cinemas without anyone knowing much about it. Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neil were recognisable but not massive stars, the rest of the small cast had all done a bit but not too much elsewhere and it all seemed like fairly standard stuff.
What the majority of casual audiences didn’t know until it was too late was that they were actually watching a horror film. The sudden, sharp turn that jolted them straight into the territory of pure terror cleverly mirrors what’s happening to the characters. In 2047, Dr. Weir (Neil) has joined Captain Miller (Fishburne) and his crew aboard the rescue ship Lewis and Clark to try to recover the long lost, experimental “Space Folding” vessel Event Horizon that Weir had designed before it went missing. But when they find the ship, it won’t let them go.
Although Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez had attempted something similar the previous year with From Dusk til Dawn, their reputations had already very much preceded them and viewers were already expecting a violent movie before the reveal that there were vampires involved. Event Horizon though, is not only a better Alien 4 than the actual fourth Alien, it’s also by far the best Hellraiser sequel going.
Screenwriter Philip Eisner’s script had originally involved some alien influence- with villainous extraterrestrials eventually turning out to be behind all the strange events- but Anderson had the idea of doing something more like The Shining with a supernatural, rather than SF, threat. The Event Horizon is more like a haunted house than a spacecraft and the horror element comes not from the unknown, but from familiar mythology.
The way the increasingly erratic Weir explains things to Miller and the other members of the crew is far more unnervingly effective than any amount of speculative technobabble- the Event Horizon left our dimension and entered one of “Pure evil and pure chaos” (as far as we’re concerned, quite literally Hell) that it’s now brought back with it.
As good as Fishburne and the supporting cast are, this is undoubtedly Neil’s film and his incredible range is demonstrated throughout. Weir goes from well- meaning but obsessive scientist, through dangerously intense madman and finally into completely demonic sadist as his creation takes control of him.
At the time, Neil was best known for the original Jurassic Park (in which he was a decent enough human lead somewhat upstaged by his CGI co- stars) and dependable supporting roles like the First Officer in The Hunt for Red October. Weir’s transformation is at the core of Event Horizon and, along with Neil’s hateful Major Campbell in Peaky Blinders, it’s a performance we would have been unlikely to see had he become James Bond in the ’80’s (Neil has said that narrowly missing out on being the fourth 007 was the best thing that ever happened for his career).
Of course, there are elements that immediately date the film to the late ’90’s (Orbital’s techno score, smoking still allowed spaceships, the Prodigy track at the end and- most obviously- the opening text that informs us that the moon was colonised in 2015) but Event Horizon is the best thing Anderson’s ever done by a country mile and should have been a bigger hit.
Unfortunately a halfarsed marketing campaign saw it quickly disappear from theatres but it’s word of mouth reputation started growing as soon as the VHS hit rental shelves. Anderson next made Soldier (1998), a largely forgotten SF actioner with Kurt Russell. After showing Event Horizon to Russell during the shoot, Snake Plissken himself (who’d been through the same sort of thing a few times with John Carpenter) told him, “Forget what this movie’s doing now. In fifteen years it’s going to be the one you’re glad you made”.
As Event Horizon’s following grew, rumours began to circulate that a longer director’s edition would one day emerge. According to almost everyone involved, far more was shot than made the theatrical cut but in 2012 Anderson revealed that he’s only ever been able to find very poor quality footage of the missing material so any expanded re-release now seems highly unlikely.
However, last year Paramount Television and Amazon Studios announced that development had begun on an Event Horizon television series. It’s currently unclear if this idea is still going anywhere but they could do a lot worse than get back the original cast and the original director- who really should get a chance to return to the world that produced by far his strongest work.
1997 / US-UK / 96 minutes
“This ship has been beyond the boundaries of our universe, of known scientific reality… No one knows where it’s been, what it’s seen- and what it’s brought back with it…”
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson / Screenplay: Philip Eisner / Director of Photography: Adrian Biddle / Music: Michael Kamen and Orbital / Production: Jeremy Bolt, Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin for Paramount Pictures / Cast: Laurence Fishburne (Miller), Sam Neil (Weir), Kathleen Quinlan (Peters), Joley Richardson (Starck), Richard T. Jones (Cooper), Jack Noseworthy (Justin), Jason Isaacs (D.J.), Sean Pertwee (Smith).
In 1995, British director Paul Anderson (it would be a couple of years until the rise of Paul Thomas Anderson necessitated him always having to add his middle initials to his credit) made what is still the only half- decent video game to movie adaptation ever with his incredibly silly but undeniably entertaining US debut, Mortal Kombat.
Immediately offered the sequel (that eventually emerged as the cut price rush job Mortal Kombat: Annihilation in 1997) and what would eventually become Bryan Singer’s first X- Men film (2000), Anderson instead chose to go in a very different direction and stayed in the UK to make Event Horizon. On the face of it, a routine Sci- Fi search and rescue mission in space story, Event Horizon would be one of the last major films to get away with pulling a genuinely shocking genre switch on audiences.
Released in late ’97 when the internet was still just for those few with the money, training and- most crucially- patience for its early days, this was a mid- budget film that arrived in cinemas without anyone knowing much about it. Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neil were recognisable but not massive stars, the rest of the small cast had all done a bit but not too much elsewhere and it all seemed like fairly standard stuff.
What the majority of casual audiences didn’t know until it was too late was that they were actually watching a horror film. The sudden, sharp turn that jolted them straight into the territory of pure terror cleverly mirrors what’s happening to the characters. In 2047, Dr. Weir (Neil) has joined Captain Miller (Fishburne) and his crew aboard the rescue ship Lewis and Clark to try to recover the long lost, experimental “Space Folding” vessel Event Horizon that Weir had designed before it went missing. But when they find the ship, it won’t let them go.
Although Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez had attempted something similar the previous year with From Dusk til Dawn, their reputations had already very much preceded them and viewers were already expecting a violent movie before the reveal that there were vampires involved. Event Horizon though, is not only a better Alien 4 than the actual fourth Alien, it’s also by far the best Hellraiser sequel going.
Screenwriter Philip Eisner’s script had originally involved some alien influence- with villainous extraterrestrials eventually turning out to be behind all the strange events- but Anderson had the idea of doing something more like The Shining with a supernatural, rather than SF, threat. The Event Horizon is more like a haunted house than a spacecraft and the horror element comes not from the unknown, but from familiar mythology.
The way the increasingly erratic Weir explains things to Miller and the other members of the crew is far more unnervingly effective than any amount of speculative technobabble- the Event Horizon left our dimension and entered one of “Pure evil and pure chaos” (as far as we’re concerned, quite literally Hell) that it’s now brought back with it.
As good as Fishburne and the supporting cast are, this is undoubtedly Neil’s film and his incredible range is demonstrated throughout. Weir goes from well- meaning but obsessive scientist, through dangerously intense madman and finally into completely demonic sadist as his creation takes control of him.
At the time, Neil was best known for the original Jurassic Park (in which he was a decent enough human lead somewhat upstaged by his CGI co- stars) and dependable supporting roles like the First Officer in The Hunt for Red October. Weir’s transformation is at the core of Event Horizon and, along with Neil’s hateful Major Campbell in Peaky Blinders, it’s a performance we would have been unlikely to see had he become James Bond in the ’80’s (Neil has said that narrowly missing out on being the fourth 007 was the best thing that ever happened for his career).
Of course, there are elements that immediately date the film to the late ’90’s (Orbital’s techno score, smoking still allowed spaceships, the Prodigy track at the end and- most obviously- the opening text that informs us that the moon was colonised in 2015) but Event Horizon is the best thing Anderson’s ever done by a country mile and should have been a bigger hit.
Unfortunately a halfarsed marketing campaign saw it quickly disappear from theatres but it’s word of mouth reputation started growing as soon as the VHS hit rental shelves. Anderson next made Soldier (1998), a largely forgotten SF actioner with Kurt Russell. After showing Event Horizon to Russell during the shoot, Snake Plissken himself (who’d been through the same sort of thing a few times with John Carpenter) told him, “Forget what this movie’s doing now. In fifteen years it’s going to be the one you’re glad you made”.
As Event Horizon’s following grew, rumours began to circulate that a longer director’s edition would one day emerge. According to almost everyone involved, far more was shot than made the theatrical cut but in 2012 Anderson revealed that he’s only ever been able to find very poor quality footage of the missing material so any expanded re-release now seems highly unlikely.
However, last year Paramount Television and Amazon Studios announced that development had begun on an Event Horizon television series. It’s currently unclear if this idea is still going anywhere but they could do a lot worse than get back the original cast and the original director- who really should get a chance to return to the world that produced by far his strongest work.
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