Event Horizon is a 1997 horror film about a rescue crew who investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned…with someone or something new on-board.
According to Paul W.S. Anderson’s alternative history timeline, the disappearance of the Event Horizon during its maiden voyage in the year 2040 is viewed as the worst space disasters on record, but much like its earthbound comparison The Titanic there is a certain fascination that now surrounds the ship because of the tragedy, more so when it returned like a futuristic Marie Celeste seven years later… changed.
Sure the idea of visiting the spaceship from hell might not seem like the sort of place which jumps out as the ideal tourist destination, much less though when you see what became of the crew who are the kind of dark delights usually reserved for the pages of a Clive Barker novel or perhaps the sunshine lyrics of Norwegian death metal bands. Still much like Charles Dickens, who chose to visit prisons and mental asylums for his travel logs, we as movie tourists shouldn’t disregard such places because they lack an obvious artistic merit that so many horror films, let alone Anderson films, are seen as having.
Modeled after Notre Dame cathedral, there is unquestionably a Gothic look to the ship, especially with the engines being designed to look like rotated church towers all that gives it a sense of foreboding before we’ve even set step on board. Once inside though, further inspiration finds in the interior made up of columns and vaults alongside cruciform shapes which form the portholes of the ship. The most distinctive of these though is in the long corridor which separates the front and back sections of the ship, which keeping with the established cathedral decals, has been designed to resemble a church nave.
Now, while the design work might seem extravagant, it somehow is grounded enough to work especially within this blue collar vision of the future, which made the Alien saga so distinctive from its counterparts, as here space travel is such an established part of everyday life it’s now on the level of any other earthbound career. However, despite the extravagant interiors of the Event Horizon, it somehow never feels out of place as Anderson works in explanations for even the most outlandish of design flairs, such as the meat grinder style funfair corridor which we are assured is to avoid compromising the magnetic fields of the gravity drive.
The gravity drive itself though is constantly shown as having an almost hypnotic power to anyone who comes in proximity to it. It’s unclear if this power comes from the sight of the drive itself as a constantly rotating sphere of lights or that the drive itself has been processed by the evil which has consumed the ship … more so when it’s revealed that while it was designed to fold space and make the craft able to break the speed of light, what it does instead is open a portal to what is assumed to be hell.
Further adding to this is the reveal of the video which shows what happened to the crew, but also Anderson redesigning the drive to include interlocking circles as a homage to the lament puzzle box from Hellraiser when the original script had the drive described as a black orb suspended in midair between large, rotating mechanical arms. Clive Barker’s influence on the film though is not limited to the drive as he also served as a consultant for the film during its pre-production, which certainly comes across when you look at many of the gorier aspects of the film, many that carry across with his distinctive elements of violence and mutilation that have consistently formed the recurring theme of his own work – the standout here being the death of Jason Isaacs’ Doctor D.J., who is discovered hanging from hooks (another Barker favourite). Isaacs had requested to take home the gruesome dummy after filming, though why anyone would want such a grotesque souvenir lead the special effects to decline, telling the actor they needed it for further shots, which apparently they didn’t.
The changes to the design of the drive of course not be the only change the script would undergo over its production as the original script saw the ship being taken over by long tentacled aliens, which Anderson saw as the film being a knock off of Alien, instead choosing to go for the idea of the unspeakable horror. Both ideas certainly tapped into a Lovecraftian vibe that runs like blood through the film. At the same time, Anderson can be viewed here as taking a note from Quentin Tarantino’s directing style as he works into the film numerous nods to his favourite horror films, such as a torrent of blood from The Shinning or reworking the ending of Don’t Look Now as Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) chases after her son who she has spent much of the film being taunted by visions of much like Donald Sutherland’s character and his daughter in her iconic red coat.
Broken down to its most base level though, the ship in Event Horizon, much like the USCSS Nostromo in Alien, is a haunted house in space with the initial questions regarding its missing crew soon making way for more personal fears. Unlike Alien, the horror onboard is not about trying to escape a monster but instead tapping into the more traditional theme of those who enter being forced to deal with facing their individual fears or as in the case of Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne), with sins of his past as he is tormented by a former crewmate he was forced to abandon on a previous mission.
These fears are subtly played out while slowly cranking up the tension as the situation for the rescue crew slowly gets worse. It’s during these moments that the surroundings really come into play as Anderson full utilises the environment to play mind games not only with the crew but the audience as well. However, despite the high gore quota, which had been one of the key reasons why Anderson signed on to direct, turning down the opportunity to helm Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and X-Men, the film known when to play things subtly, saving the gore for the final quarter as Anderson manages to slowly crank up the tension by causing the neon green tunnels of the engine room to pulse or even simpler still by using the sound of fingertips running across fabric. This incorporates a less-is-more approach as the environment already has us the viewer on edge and removes the need to show us more in generating the required shocks. In turn, this gets us the pay off with greater impact when he does reveal the full horror in the end.
Unquestionably a gory film to begin with, the film would undergo numerous cuts to avoid being given the so called kiss of death NC-17 rating, which the initial cut of the film received when it was submitted to the MPAA. Looking over the notes for the scenes which were cut, most unsurprisingly from the security footage showing what happened to the crew there are several sequences mentioned which would have further utilised the environment further including a play on the Spiderwalk sequence from The Exorcist, which I guess was also a loss for anyone who wanted to see a naked Sam Neill crawling backwards down a ladder.
One of the better clever tricks here though is actually down to Anderson’s arguably underrated skills as a director, in particular the fact that we are lead to believe that we see the whole ship when all we actually get to see is the bridge, engine room, medical bay and the main corridor, connecting the front and back portions of the ship. Yet much like what Ridley Scott achieved with Alien, the action and drama takes place in a few limited locations, shot with such intensity and memorable moments, it actually leaves you feeling like you have seen the whole ship when in fact you have only seen a small section.
While many critics are keen to dismiss Anderson’s work as a director mainly due to his dedication to the Resident Evil series and making what on the surface can be dismissed as disposable films, there is an undercurrent to his work that shows a much smarter and certainly visually minded filmmaker at work, with this being one of the more obvious arguments, and while the critics / audiences might not have got it on its release, it has gone on to spawn a considerable cult following like many of his films. This is certainly, visually, one of the more interesting films in his filmography and makes you wonder how Danny Boyle’s Sunshine would have turned out had Anderson not laid the groundwork first.