Event Horizon: My review/opinion
Thoughts on Event Horizon (Spoilers and controversial rant ahead; reader discretion advised. ):
Despite bombing at the box office as well as getting negative reviews all across the board, Event Horizon was still admired by many viewers once it was released on video. It soon became a cult classic, and even influence the video game series, Dead Space, as well as "The Woodland Critter Christmas" episode of South Park.
So, I figured I would give the movie a shot and see for myself if it's truly the sci-fi horror masterpiece that everyone claimed it was.
At first, I loved the buildup and atmosphere surrounding the film. It made me invested in the lingering darkness laying before them, providing a good amount of tension. The CG was also impressive........for the most part (a good chunk of it hasn't aged well sadly). Plus, the exposition and mystery surrounding the mission they're on sounded intriguing and possibly inventive. They could have gone to such great lengths with a premise like that.
Unfortunately, as grand as those elements were for me, that's really all the praise I can give this film. Though the actors were decent in their own right (except for Sam Neil, which I'll get to later), doing what they could to get through the vapid dialogue, there really wasn't anything memorable about them to me. There's hardly any scenes where I got to spend time with the crew members and feel their pain, struggles, and their attempts at maintaining hope. This, in turn, lead to a severe lack of character development for a good portion of the crew, leaving me to truthfully not care at all what fate awaits them. Laurence Fishburne's character did have a small backstory that does drive him forward, but I felt it wasn't quite enough to find him compelling. Then, there's Sam Neil. He seemed fine, at first, portraying the role of the doctor leading the crew to this rescue mission. However, once the third act gets going, the ham levels skyrocketed and the intensity/malice he was supposed to exhibit during his descent into chaotic madness seemed very unbalanced. He didn't seem menacing in the slightest, and could have been better portrayed by someone else with a much more sinister tone. The worst offender, however, concerning Sam Neil's character is that I could hardly ever tell when madness was governing him. There was a moment where it seems he's under the grip, and a few seconds later, he was as peachy as they come. The story failed to really give me comprehension as to when insanity engulfed one or more of the characters and when it decides, "Hell with it. Go back to your dandy frightened states. I'll be picking on you later as I read more Clive Barker novels because....I need a gimmick, c'mon." This, in turn, left some instances where a few characters were simply acting out of what they're supposed to without giving a real, cohesive reason why. This was a big problem concerning the story. It blundered on giving me a valid reason for these actions unfolding.
Speaking of the story, the plot decided once they reach their destination and discovered its secret, it rushed on through and just got to the jump scares, gore, and lack of solid immersion. In other words, the pacing was pretty mediocre. There was literally no room to breathe as the story continued to swiftly progress through the scenes without taking a break and letting the calm and contemplative moments come into play. That, and the jump scares lost their luster once shifted into full throttle. By the time the third act occurred, when I thought it couldn't fall apart any further, it basically started to deteriorate at the seams. The gore levels were turned up to the extreme, losing its shock value and seemed to borrow WAY too many elements from Clive Barker. It got ridiculous and almost embarrassing for me to watch it all the way through. In fact, as I was watching this, I thought to myself of older and much better novels and films that captured the essence of this plot in some regards, and did it WAY better than this movie could ever accomplish.
Overall, one can definitely say that I'm not with the cult following considering this movie. It started out so promising (despite the laughable techno title track at the beginning credits), but it soon faltered and ended up being a film that was merely average and bland to me overall. A part of me was glad that I finally got to see this film, especially for the good things it had going, but I would never want to witness this space expedition again. Give me 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Solaris, even Hellraiser instead of this anytime. At least Hellraiser's got the clicking teeth guy and "Jesus Wept!".
