Film
Director Paul W.S. Anderson cut his teeth in the industry by directing the 1995
Christopher Lambert film Mortal Kombat, a cinematic adaptation of the
video game franchise of the same name. This gave him the clout to tackle the
sci-fi horror film Event Horizon, a colorful pastiche of genre influences
ranging from Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) to Gary Nelson’s The Black
Hole (1979) to Peter Hyams’ Outland (1981) to Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce
(1985) and to James Cameron’s Aliens (1986).
The
term “event horizon”, as defined by Wikipedia, refers to “a boundary beyond
which events cannot affect an observer.” Physicist Wolfgang Rindler founded
this term in 1956 and this phenomenon is mentioned by Dr. Hans Reinhardt (played
by Maximillian Schell) in Walt Disney’s The Black Hole. In Mr.
Anderson’s film, Event Horizon is the name of a starship that mysteriously
vanished on its way to Proxima Centauri in 2040. Proxima Centauri is roughly 25
trillion miles from Earth and would take 6300-man years to get to it with
present day technology, but the film has much better transportation methods in
mind. It reappears seven years later with little explanation regarding its
current state. A distress signal is picked up by the rescue vessel, Lewis and
Clark, and the Event Horizon is now orbiting Neptune. The inhabitants of the
Lewis and Clark, who come out of hyper sleep like the crew of the Nostromo in Alien,
consist of Laurence Fishburne (of 1979’s Apocalypse Now) as Commanding
Officer Miller, Sam Neill (of 1993’s Jurassic Park) as Dr. William Weir,
Kathleen Quinlan (of 1997’s Breakdown) as Peters, Joely Richardson as
Starck, Richard T. Jones as Cooper, Jack Noseworthy (of 1997’s Breakdown)
as Justin, Jason Isaacs (of 2006’s Brotherhood, Showtime’s best series)
as D.J., and Sean Pertwee as Smith. This motley crew is on edge, dropping not-so-subtle
hints about their reluctance to engage in this mission to see if there are any
survivors aboard the starship. Dr. Weir reminds me of Ash, the aloof and
sinister science officer in Alien. He designed the Event Horizon and
tries to explain to the crew how the ship was built with the capability of
generating manmade black holes to connect space and time for the purpose of
enabling lightning-fast travel – at least that’s what I got out of his rant.
Even
in space, the ultimate enemy is man (anyone remember that tag line?), and there
are many pissing contests in space to be had in the testosterone-bathed
environment that the crew is forced to work in. Snide remarks and insults
abound, much to the consternation of Miller who realizes that the ship itself
has a life of its own and causes the crew to hallucinate when it taps into
their psyches, exposing unresolved fears and grief from their past that only
each individual can see. This is a nice change of pace for the genre. Sending
the crew to their demise at the hands of yet another onboard alien would truly
have been an unnecessary and unwarranted retread of Sir Ridley Scott’s and
James Cameron’s aforementioned masterworks, no matter how good the intentions
may have been. Event Horizon may be the ultimate “face your fears” film.
The premise results in some truly shocking imagery that, according to director
Anderson, appears in the form of one to three quick frames to give the audience
a glimpse of what the crew is facing/experiencing. If the imagery does appear
to be very fast, it’s also due to the fact that much more had actually been
filmed but ultimately cut as it was deemed to be too gruesome.
Interestingly,
Event Horizon was both a critical and commercial failure following its
release on Friday, August 15, 1997 and if the film seems confusing at times, it
should – the original desired 130-minute cut assembled by director Anderson was
truncated by 34 minutes by the studio against his wishes. It also didn’t help
in that the film was rushed through both principal photography and postproduction
and was released just a mere five months after the production wrapped. Through
no fault of the director, the 96-minute running time feels too little for a
film like this. What makes Alien and Aliens the masterpieces they
are is even after many viewings is that they spend time on character
development and exposition and never feel rushed.
A
similar fate infamously befell Michael Mann’s doomed 1983 film version of F.
Paul Wilson’s novel The Keep when he was forced to reduce the original running
time of 210 minutes down to 120 minutes, and Paramount reduced it by yet another
23 minutes to a nearly incomprehensible 97 minutes, giving audiences only a
hint at what greatness may have lay on the cutting room floor. While fans of Event
Horizon would love to see the longer cut (even Paramount reached out to the
director following the film’s excellent rental and purchasing history on DVD
following its box office failure), this footage is, unfortunately, deemed to be
lost.
Event
Horizon was previously
released on DVD in a movie-only edition in 1998, then again in a special
edition with extras in 2006. It made its way to Blu-ray with the same extras in
2008, 2013, 2017, and most notably in 2021 with a special edition from Scream
Factory boasting eleven new extras exclusive to that edition. The new 4K Ultra
High Definition Paramount Blu-ray easily contains the film’s best-looking
transfer to date, along with a Blu-ray and a Digital Code. The ported over
extras consist of:
A
feature-length audio commentary with director Anderson and the film’s producer
Jeremy Bolt, partners who met early in their careers and founded Impact
Pictures in 1992. The track was recorded for the 2006 DVD release, and it
covers the requisite history of how the film came to be, the difficulties in
the execution of the film’s effects, the design of the starship, their working
relationship with the actors and actresses, the film’s marketing, to name a
few.
The
Making of Event Horizon
– This is a five-part making-of documentary from 2006 that has the “Play All”
feature available as an option. It runs one hour and forty-three minutes. It’s
a fascinating look at the origins of the film, with a lot of intercutting among
the cast and crew speaking eloquently and complimentary about the production.
There are some funny and humorous anecdotes here, which is refreshing to see when
you’re dealing with such horrific subject matter. Director Anderson also speaks
about the difficulties of rushing to get the film answer printed and locked for
test screenings.
The
Point of No Return: The Filming of Event Horizon – Just over eight minutes, this is a four-part
encapsulation of the revolving tunnel, the 360-degree camerawork, zero gravity,
and one of the character’s descents into madness.
Secrets – At ten minutes, this piece consists
of three deleted scenes that were cut from the film. Most of it contains the
more unsavory elements that were excised from the final cut, such as a truly
creepy scene of one of the characters in an Exorcist-inspired “spider
walk” scene.
The
Unseen Event Horizon – At
three minutes, this piece illustrates conceptual art done for the film, most of
which was not filmed.
Rounding
out the extras are a theatrical trailer and a video trailer.
If
you’re a fan of the film, the new transfer is a must-have.