It’s a dark and stormy night (thanks, Snoopy).
Seeking shelter, a van of intrepid travelers stops at a remote manor
house isolated in a foggy, boggy countryside. When the hapless band
enters, they find themselves trapped behind mysteriously locked doors
and barred windows. And worse, they discover that the abandoned
mansion is haunted by unspeakable evil. One by one, they are lured to
grisly deaths, leaving the viewer to ponder if anyone can possibly
survive. Sound familiar? It should. This well-trod plotline has been
resurrected many times and screenwriter
Philip Eisner trotted it out
once again as he takes advantage of the science fiction resurgence
triggered twenty year before with
Star Wars. This 1997 film
is a classic horror premise set in space.
The Event Horizon is an experimental interstellar ship, the
first of its kind. The ship’s revolutionary drive was designed
by Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill), a brilliant scientist haunted by the
death of his wife, Claire (Holley Chant). The drive takes advantage of
a legitimate concept in current physics. Since you cannot exceed the
speed of light, the only way you can travel interstellar distances in
a reasonable period of time is to warp space-time, creating a wormhole
that provides a shortcut from one point to another. Philip Eisner goes
one fanciful step further, imparting the Event
Horizon‘s drive with the ability to generate an artificial
black hole as the means to create the wormhole. It’s 2040 when
the Event Horizon travels out to the orbit of Neptune during
its maiden voyage, deemed sufficiently distant from Earth for safety.
When the crew of the Event Horizon engages the drive, the
ship and its crew disappear… for seven years.
Its navigation beacon is then located in the vicinity of Neptune but
no meaningful contact with crew can be made; a rescue expedition is
launched with Weir onboard. Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne)
commands the Lewis & Clark. Med Tech Peters (Kathleen
Quinlan), Lt. Starck (Joely Richardson), Cooper (Richard T. Jones),
Justin (Jack Noseworthy), D.J. (Jason Isaacs), and Smith (Sean
Pertwee) make up the crew’s compliment. They are a close-knit
team of interplanetary search and rescue specialists, and are none to
happy about Weir’s presence onboard.
They locate,
link, and board the Event Horizon with disastrous results.
Weir’s space-time warping drive may be worthy of kudos, but
whoever designed the navigation system dropped the ball. The ship has
returned from some unknown location, untold millions of light-years
away, a place akin to hell, a place where sadistic mind games,
torture, and death seem to be sources of amusement. One might think
that such a “civilization” would have imploded in an orgy
of self-destruction, but whatever the nature of those creatures, they
seem to enjoy the prospect of fresh meat. And the only point to this
increasingly unpleasant tale is discovering who will die and who will
survive.
Director Paul W.S. Anderson, his set designers, and the special
effects people do a masterful job of establishing the setting for this
adventure. The Event Horizon is an impressive ship in a
configuration that will be familiar to fans of 2001: A Space
Odyssey. The production is full of small details that add
believable textures but larger details become a tad ludicrous. Large
explosive charges have been installed along the long shaft that
separates the structure holding the bridge, sickbay, and crew quarters
from the engine. Those explosives play pivotal roles in the plot, but
wouldn’t explosive bolts within a coupling mechanism have been
more sensible? The Lewis & Clark approaches the Event
Horizon through Neptune’s stormy and turbulent atmosphere,
but for the rest of the film, with the exception of a bit of
lightning, it’s dead calm. And carbon dioxide scrubbers are of
great concern early in the film but are neglected for most of the
rest. Self-consistency, Mr. Eisner, self-consistency.
What we’re left with is a sense of tension and foreboding,
shocks and scares, and unpleasant ways to die. The Haunting
meets 2001. If you enjoy horror set in a futuristic setting,
this may be the film for you.
The Video: How Does
The Disc Look?
The film’s theatrical aspect
ratio of 2.35:1 is presented in a fine high definition trailer
compressed with the AVC video CODEC. Color accuracy is excellent.
There are natural flesh tones and convincingly red blood. The
blackness of space is impressively dark. The video has a pleasing
dynamic range with no black or white crush. Small object detail and
finely grained textures are quite nice, revealing visual subtleties. I
didn’t notice any chroma noise or artifacts, with one exception.
Modest and subtle halos run through the film. Sometimes they are
invisible; sometimes they impart a slightly processed look.
Regardless, the transfer looks pretty good.
The
Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
The Dolby TrueHD
5.1 track is highly dynamic with ample use of the surrounds to envelop
the viewer with both discrete effects intended to frighten and
atmospherics that establish a nice sense of ambience. Michael Kamen,
who has written many scores rich with themes and leitmotifs, has
instead composed an aggressive orchestral score that provokes
appropriate viewer reactions. The tight bass and persuasive musical
timbre drew me into the action. The track’s bottom end is
impressive in its depth and intensity; only the finest subwoofer will
be able to reproduce all its low frequency content. The dialog is
distortion-free throughout.
The alternate languages are in
French and Spanish, both in Dolby Digital 5.1. Optional subtitles are
in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
The supplements have been ported over from a previous DVD release,
and with oone exception, are all in standard definition.
We
begin with the feature-length commentary by Director
Paul W.S. Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt, audibly placed in the
left and right front channels. Anderson and Bolt are chatty and like
to joke a bit with one another. This is predominantly a technical
commentary. It’s here that we learn that the Lewis &
Clark set was built on gimbals to simulate movement and
turbulence, and the Event Horizon‘s design was
influenced by a cathedral. The technicalities are placed within the
context of artistic decisions that were intended to achieve specific
goals. Apparently, the original cut was even gorier than this one. The
filmmakers explain that test screenings motivated Paramount to insist
on cuts and they regret not having the time to refine the film before
release. I thought the film was quite gruesome enough, thank you. Of
particular interest is a short anecdote about how a practical
flamethrower effect went very wrong, essentially destroying a set.
I’m delighted that the filmmakers didn’t narrate the
action or spend too much time on character motivation.
The Making of Event Horizon documentary
runs a generous 1:43:01 and is presented in 1.78:1 standard definition
anamorphic video. It’s divided into five chapters covering
specific aspects of the production. Into the Jaws of Darkness
examines preproduction and the intended look and feel of the film.
Director Anderson, producer Jeremy Bolt, and production designer
Joseph Bennett are the primary participants. The Body of the
Beast focuses on the cast as they join a mutual admiration
society. The director and producer and the special effects supervisor
are also present. But special effects are really the domain of
Liberate Tutume Ex Infernis. Here we learn about the huge set
constructed as the engine room and how the some of the destruction was
accomplished. We also learn a bit about the gruesome makeup effects.
The Scale to Hell looks at postproduction work. Featured are
details about the pullback from the orbiting space station and the
creation of the vast Event Horizon. Last is The Womb of
Fear in which we learn about editing and the pressures for change
that came from the test-screening process. As the director and
producer mention the problems in their commentary and here, they are
candid about how Paramount caused them to substantially change their
vision as they created the theatrical cut. And how can we cover
postproduction without a tip of the hat to the score; that too is
covered.
The Point of No Return: The Filming of The
Event Horizon (8:02 aggregate, 1.33:1, SD) is organized into
four sections: The Revolving Corridor is an interesting
little sequence that demonstrates the practical effects of flame in
the revolving corridor; The Crew Gathers shows the actors
preparing for a scene and the shooting of the scene with a circular
track; Shooting Wire Work demonstrates how difficult and
time-consuming wire work is and why that approach was abandoned; and,
The Dark Inside is a behind the scenes view of a sequence
that Anderson regrets having to excise (and also spliced in an
unrelated sequence of celebrating his 31st birthday onset).
Secrets (10:03 aggregate, geometrically distorted
non-anamorphic widescreen, SD) introduces us to the scenes that were
cut or trimmed. There are three sequences: Deleted Briefing
Scene has an optional director’s commentary; the
Extended Medical Bay Scene may be played only with the
director’s commentary active; and, the Extended Burning Man
Confrontation also has a mandatory commentary. The first sequence
shows two briefers on the space station revealing the discovery of the
Event Horizon and Weir’s convincing them to send him on
the mission. It has no FX on the filmed green screen. This was cut for
pace. The second scene is an example of a minor cut to reduce the gore
factor (and Anderson offers a funny little anecdote, as well). The
third is another example of reducing gore, but more to the point,
during this sequence Anderson makes clear that the ship had traveled
to hell and back. The evil onboard the ship is indeed satanic.
The Unseen Event Horizon offers glimpses into
aspects of the film that never went into production. Here you’ll
find storyboards with director’s commentary for
The Unfilmed Rescue Scene (2:57, 1.78:1, SD). It introduces
the crew of the Lewis & Clark executing a rescue at a
mining colony. Next is Conceptual Art (3:52, 1.78:1, SD) created in
preproduction. The director also narrates this. This is interesting to
the extent that it demonstrates the evolution of a typical project
from conception to execution.
Finally, we have the
film’s original theatrical trailer (2:29,
2.35:1, HD) and its video trailer (1:48, 1.33:1,
SD).
The 95-minute film is organized into seventeen
chapters.
Final Thoughts
Event Horizon isn’t the first film to try to scare us
far, far from Earth. You’ll recall that “In Space, No One
Can Hear You Scream.” But these scares are more Earth-bound than
the imaginatively alien possibilities of deep space. If you think you
may enjoy a blend of gothic horror and contemporary gory makeup
effects set in a science fiction venue, you might enjoy this gruesome
romp. A very good transfer, a very good audio tack, and surprisingly
good supplements round out this package.
Here’s a note about the apparent duplicate Buy Guide. Our
understaffed I.T. people are hard at work on a large project, putting
gout fires, and have not yet had the time to modify the underlying
site database formatting code to accommodate the new 0-to-10 rating
scales. So until they do, for HD on disc, I’ll insert this note
and a Buy Guide at the end of the review text and leave the
conventional 0-to-5 Buy Guide blank.
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