EVENT HORIZON
 
("Hell is just a word. The reality is much, much worse" -Dr. Weir)
 
What has happened here? 
REVIEW
 
When we start to analyze Event Horizon, the most important aspect is that the film is a horror film. Actually it's not a science fiction thriller like Alien. Event Horizon is more like a psychological horror film like Kubrick's The Shining. The film is just set in outer space with all the technical science fiction stuff. But when we turn the lights off, we travel somewhere to the middle ages to face a medieval kind of evil. Event Horizon IS a horror film and it is VERY frightening. It's not like those teen-slashers like Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer. The horror doesn't come from the violence or gory deaths (those things are in the film just for making it even more aggressive). No. What horrifies us is our own imagination. We have a sentences like "Hell is just a word. The reality is much, much worse" and we start to think in our minds. It's a bit like reading a scary novel.
 
It is not the violence that makes Event Horizon so scary!What makes the film astonishing is Paul Anderson's way to use the cameras and edit the movie. Event Horizon has very unusual (but good) camera angles and lots of fast editing. Now those things are very important for a horror film like this one. Another good point is the awesome music score by Michael Kamen. I have the soundtrack and when I listen to it, I get really nervous. And isn't that what horror films should do to you?

What about the actors? Some of them are excellent but some are really not so good. Sam Neill's character is eventually the best. There is something very professional in the way Neill handles his  role of Dr. William Weir. I think that Sean Pertwee did also a great job as Smith, the pilot. The rest of the cast is all right with the exception of Jack Noseworthy.
 

Captain Miller is burning! Hahahaha!
Then we come to the script by Philip Eisner. Well, it has a lots of good aspects in it but there is too much action in the end. The film should've stayed a horror film all the time. The end wasn't loyal to the theme of the film. Event Horizon was meant to be "The Shining in space"! I'm not saying it isn't. It's just the end. It was, you know, too absurd in a way.

There was two things which actually saved the end of the film. They are: 1) The survivors are the ones who had no contact with the Event Horizon whatsoever. 2) In the beginning Dr. Weir is seeing a nightmare about his dead wife (and he had invented the ship). In the end, one of the survivors saw a "hallucination" of, well, the bad guy. So, we can presume that the evil of Event Horizon is still alive! I like that. Of course, there could've been even a better ending. Has anyone seen Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers? There is a really great end. Or George A. Romero's The Night Of The Living Dead! That was awesome, too.

Still, Event Horizon has so many good things in it, that it is good. I especially want to point out the music, the editing by Martin Hunter (he has worked with Anderson also in Mortal Kombat and Soldier) and the superb direction by Anderson. Really an enjoyable horror film! And you know, it is scary too! 

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