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Tuesday, October 29, 2024

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 29: EVENT HORIZON (1997)

Space is infinite... and so are its terrors.

2047: A rescue mission is sent to the orbit of Neptune, where seven years earlier the spaceship Event Horizon activated an experimental gravity drive and disappeared without a trace, but it has now suddenly returned. The designer of the gravity drive (Sam Neill) accompanies the rescue team and informs them that the gravity drive creates a black hole within its ship, which folds time and space, thus bypassing lengthy space voyages where the crew would remain in stasis until the destination is reached. Upon entering the Event Horizon, the rescuers find what remains of the crew to be dead, killed in horrific ways, with no explanation immediately apparent. The ship's log tape is reviewed, and its imagery cuts out just as the Event Horizon's captain initiates the gravity drive. The rescuers and the designer explore the ship, and what they find amounts to, well... Basically, the Event Horizon fucked off to another dimension, a place that's basically our concept of Hell, and the gravity drive has gained a malevolent sentience. It does not go well for the rescuers.


EVENT HORIZON wears its ALIEN influence on its sleeve, and features a game cast, great sets, and is gerally well-crafted all around. That said, It's definitely not for me. One of my least favorite flavors in horror is the haunted house. There are exceptions, but for the most part haunted house stories just don;t do it for me, and EVENT HORIZON is nothing if not a haunted house story set in deep space. It's good, but I kept check my watch to see how much longer I had to go until the end. Your mileage, however, is likely to vary. I know many who love it, and that's fine, but when it comes to haunted house chills, I'll take POLTERGEIST over this in a heartbeat. Anyway, it's a free country (for now), so you decide.

Poster for the theatrical release.

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