Event Horizon (1997)

Event Horizon is a 1997 science fiction horror movie directed by Paul W. S. Anderson starring Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill.

Most critics compared the film to Alien, Hellraiser, The Black Hole, Solaris, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. In recent years though, in a similar fashion to Blade Runner and John Carpenter's The Thing, it has come to be regarded as a unique contribution to the sci-fi genre with positive contemporary reviews.

Plot
In the near future, humanity has successfully colonized the Moon and other planets in the solar system and is venturing deeper into space, but it still has not achieved faster than light spacecrafts.

In the year 2047 a group of astronauts of the rescue vessel "Lewis and Clark" are sent to investigate and salvage the long lost starship "Event Horizon" with the help of its designer Dr. William Neir. The ship, built by the government to test a secret, experimental faster-than-light gravity drive, disappeared mysteriously 7 years before on its maiden voyage. Its mission was to reach Proxima Centauri, but on its way it vanished. Suddenly it reappeared again near Neptune in a decaying orbit and the crew has to reach it before it crashes into it.

The crew, under the leadership of Captain Miller, reach the ship in time and finds the crew horribly massacred there and a ship that somehow has become alive, but it has also returned from a dimension of pure hell, where it was due to the activation of the gravity drive 7 years ago, a hell which also caused the massacre.

Now it threatens them, too. It irrevocably damages the "Lewis and Clark" and begins to kill its crew members. They all begin to have hallucinations because of it, too.

Later Dr. Weir, the one most attached to the ship, becomes posessed by this supernatural force, which ultimately wants to capture and posess as many crewmembers alive as possible to take them with the ship back to this dimension and kill the rest who resists its will.

He then plants an explosive onboard the "Lewis and Clark", destroying the ship, and killing co-pilot Smith and blasting Cooper off into space. Cooper blows his air tank to get back to the ship. DJ is then brutally murdered by Weir, and Miller arms himself to avenge his fallen crew mates.

After finding Wier on the bridge, he plans to send the Event Horizon to the hellish dimension, but a mishap with a nail gun then causes explosive decompression that sends Weir to his death. Miller and Starck rescue Cooper who finds his way back to the ship, but the gravity drive has been activated, and they can't shut it down.

A fight to the death ensues. Miller sacrifices himself to cut the ship in two with more explosives in the corridor and take him and Weir back to the dimension with the gravity drive in the back section saving what´s left of his crew in the forward section.

Only Starck and Cooper, who were in the forward section at that time, survive and return to Earth in stasis with the forward section of the ship, which is also a rescue vessel in itself. They reach Earth 72 days later, but they are also haunted and traumatized by the experience.

Cast

 * Laurence Fishburne as Captain Miller
 * Sam Neill as Dr. William Weir
 * Joely Richardson as Lieutenant Starck
 * Jason Isaacs as D.J.
 * Sean Pertwee as Smith
 * Richard T. Jones as Cooper
 * Kathleen Quinlan as Peters
 * Jack Noseworthy as Ensign Justin
 * Noah Huntley as Edmund Corrick
 * Peter Marinker as Captain John Kilpack
 * Holley Chant as Claire Weir
 * Barclay Wright as Denny Peters, son of Technician Peters
 * Robert Jezek as Rescue Technician

Production
After directing the successful Mortal Kombat in 1995, Anderson was offered the job. The release date had already been set and Anderson agreed, despite that the deadline meant that the post-production period was severely reduced. On the commentary, Anderson cites this as the main cause for the many troubles faced during production and especially when Anderson was to make decisions on the final cut.

In the commentary Anderson mentions the wish he had to direct an R rated picture after the PG-13 rated Mortal Kombat and also mentions that he turned down the opportunity to direct X-Men, Alien Resurrection, and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation in order to make Event Horizon.

Reception
The movie was a box office failure and received unfavourable critical reviews. However, since then it has become a cult film.