WTF Movie of the Week: Event Horizon!

She could not understand what her new contacts had to
do with her kids'  nightmares...

Ever since I watched Into the Mouth of Madness I have no qualms anymore about Sam Neill doing horror. So, there, I've said it...

Event Horizon is the story of a spaceship by the same name that got lost some years ago and has recently turned up on the far side of our Milky Way. So, the rag-tag bunch of fearless pilots fly their ship over there to take a peak. With them is the brilliant scientist (Neill) who is part of the team that built the Event Horizon. It was designed to breech the borders of the known universe and, by Golly, it did.

As soon as the team docks at the Event Horizon, strange things start to happen. The log gives off horrible (and gory) images of what happened to its (now disappeared or dead) crew and the engine seems to have a mind of its own. Add to that the unexplaineable sabotages to the ship they've arrived in, making it virtually impossible to return to Earth, and you have a recipe for disaster. Soon the crew fall victim to hallucinations and horrible flash backs to the worst moments of their lives.

Event Horizon basically re-hashes the 'haunted house'-stereotype of horror. The sci-fi window dressing is just a nice cadre in which to place it. But this is just one of those movies where you can tell the crew had fun doing it! The actors are really into their characters, the story itself is nice, rounded and deep. No loose ends are left (although the ending hints at a sequal). Halfway through it, my wife went up to sleep, but I just didn't want to join her. I had to know how this turned out.

Sam Neill is wonderful as the evil antagonist. Ever since his Jurassic Park-character he just evokes such feelings of safety in me that his transformation into this almost Pinhead-type monster is horror enough on its own.

If you have two hours to spare and you don't know what to do with yourself, give this a whirl! Really, you won't be disappointed!

Marcel