Event Horizon

This is one of those moves that comes with a legend, and that legend is more like baggage. Suffering extensive cuts in editing and after disastrous test screenings, the studio forced a super short cut into theaters to the displeasure of the director. For a long time, he’s opined about the lost footage and the movie he wanted to release but got butchered. And I’m not sure his complaints have much merit. Sure, there is some editing issues, namely in how the hallucinations and insanity ramp up from 0 to 100 in mere moments. And Sam Neill’s character likewise goes from normal to unhinged pretty damned quickly. More character work is what this movie needs, not the gore and Hellraiser-like imagery that you get in the final act. But what is there is fairly good. Not great, but pretty good. It’s long been called Hellraiser in space, but I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s more akin to a Lovecraftian story. Think if From Beyond took place on a spaceship, with inter-dimensional gateways tearing at not only the fabric of reality, but distorting people’s minds, making them question reality. The performances are really good all around here. Not a bad one in the bunch, even if a lot of the characters are archetypes. Likewise, the score is suitably epic and ominous. You’ll have to excuse the late 90’s CGI and green screen work effects, though; they do not hold up in 2022. At a tight hour and a half, it never wears out it’s welcome or gets bogged down. The pace is great, the tension is palpable, and the final act is bonkers. It’s just sad how you can see the frayed edges where this thing was stitched together as is, from what is likely a much better cut that is lost to time.