Director Paul Anderson became known to the general public after such legendary films as Shopping, Resident Evil, Pompeii, Soldier, and Alien vs. Predator. In the list of works of this master of shooting fantastic thrillers and horrors, there is another quite interesting film called Event Horizon. At one time, he provoked various reviews, because he contained quite frank scenes of brutal violence. At the same time, it was noted in many forums that all Event Horizon actors did an excellent job and perfectly played their screen images. True connoisseurs of the genre in which Anderson works appreciated this directorial work.
Event Horizon: Movie Story
Since the film belongs to the genre of science fiction, the fact that events are developing in 2047 does not surprise anyone from the audience. In the story, a doctor named William Weir, together with the brave crew of the Lewis and Clark ship, goes to the planet Neptune, because it was from there that the SOS signal from the second ship, called Event Horizon, was received.
Weir is a scientist, designer and physicist who once participated in the development of a secret project. A few years earlier, the government asked scientists to create a spaceship that could fly very impressive distances and at the same time have a speed exceeding the speed of light. According to the doctor, such a ship was created and received the name Event Horizon, which means “Through the Horizon”.
For a long time he was considered missing, and only 7 years after the last flight a distress signal was recorded from him.
Crew members, led by Captain Miller, are skeptical about Weir’s story and don’t quite trust him, because they believe that the speed of light, according to the theory of relativity, cannot be exceeded. But the physicist throughout the expedition inexorably continued to insist on his own. Weir explained such an incredible, at first glance, the possibility that the ship, created with his participation, had an engine that artificially created a black hole. The ship used its tremendous energy in order to change time and space so that the final and initial points of the ship's travel coincided when superimposed on each other. Thus, according to the doctor, the formation of a spatial tunnel takes place, passing through which, the Event Horizon ship was able to instantly move to anywhere in the universe. During one of these movements to a planet called Proxima Centauri, the ship went missing.
Horror scenes
Event Horizon gets a special tension after the heroes fly to Neptune and find the lost ship. It turns out that his entire crew disappeared without a trace, and on board there was only a mutilated corpse and bloody traces. The tension rises even more after a breakdown occurs on board the Lewis and Clark ship, and Captain Miller finds himself in a situation that forces him to temporarily put his crew on board a strange, abandoned by everyone and inspiring horror Event Horizon. Forced to be aboard the found ship, crew members begin to see strange and creepy things.
For example, one of the lieutenants imagines a son who has instead of his legs bloodied pieces of meat covered with bleeding wounds.
Captain Miller begins to be pursued by his late friend, whom he once condemned to death, leaving him on the flaming Goliath ship. Weira begins to pursue his late wife, who many years ago committed suicide and all the time calls him to her. These terrible scenes were only the beginning of a nightmare that the crew will have to endure.
The writers accuse of excessive naturalism
After the release of the film, many viewers who are not fans of the horror and fiction genre were outraged by the scenes of violence shown below. According to some, they were shot too naturally. According to the plot of the film, after the first terrifying visions, the crew manages to find out the truth - the ship that disappeared 7 years ago, opening a space-time tunnel, fell into a completely different Universe, which was something similar to Christian hell.
The video found on the ship showed that the missing members of the Event Horizon crew fell into a frenzy, they became participants in chilling tortures, violent orgies and cannibalism. At the same time, the found ship itself is gradually turning into a conscious and thinking creature that does not intend to let go of the expedition that arrived at the Lewis and Clark.
The first woman to fall under the reprisal of the ship was Lieutenant Pitters. Constant visions of her son lead her into a planned trap. After the Weir finds her corpse, the doctor is visited by the ghost of his dead wife, which drives him completely crazy. Staying in a state of insanity in order to no longer see the nightmare surrounding him, he squeezes his eyes out to himself. Having completely lost control of himself, the doctor blows up the Lewis and Clark ship, thereby depriving all other crew members of the opportunity to escape. Continuing to go crazy, Weir alive reveals the first assistant to the captain - DJ Jay.
Confirming its direct relationship to the horror film, this tape is really full of naturalistically shot scenes of violence. It is for this reason that people who are not fans of this genre will find it difficult to watch the tape.
At one time, the director Paul Andersen even had to cut out about 20 minutes from the total time of the film, which occupied too frank scenes of violence. Otherwise, the film could simply not get on the wide screen and not get a rating in category R.
Viewers feedback on the unexpected ending
In this article, we will not spoil the intrigue for those who have not yet seen the film Through the Horizon (Event Horizon, 1997 release) and fully describe the ending. We only note that the end of this tape caused various reviews from the audience.
One of the finals is not entirely clear, and therefore, after viewing, they still have a feeling of a certain lack of agreement. Others, on the contrary, believe that the ending of this film turned out to be very worthy and makes us think about the essence of the Cosmos incomprehensible to the human brain.
Critics' opinion on the plot of the film
It is known that the future criticism of the film is largely determined by how well the cast played their roles. Event Horizon became that rare example when both the selection of actors and their acting skills were highly appreciated by both ordinary viewers and professional critics.
The plot of the film no one dared to call banal, ordinary, predictable or boring. But almost all the ratings of the tape say that the film is uniquely designed exclusively for connoisseurs of the horror genre, psychological thriller and science fiction. Critics initially do not recommend this picture to those who are not attracted to such works, since it can really be too difficult for an unprepared perception.
Opinion filmmakers
Connoisseurs of such things say that the film’s script remotely resembles one of Ray Bradbury’s short stories. Someone, with their general atmosphere, Event Horizon (the film that was presented in 1997) resembles the film “Sphere”. On various forums there is an opinion that, according to general impressions after watching, it is a kind of symbiosis of Pandorum and Interstaller.
Event Horizon: actors and roles
In this work, the acting is really at a high professional level. In almost all reviews, viewers note this fact, despite the fact that at the time the movie was released, almost all Event Horizon actors were considered secondary.
The role of captain Miller went to a man who gained wide fame and recognition several years later, in 1999, after his legendary game in The Matrix. Everyone knows him as Morphius. New Zealand actor Sam Nill has played Dr. Weyr quite strongly.
The odious Dr. Weir
For objectivity, it is worth saying that the role assigned to Nill is one of the most difficult, since it was his character who was obsessed with the ship, in the development of which he himself took part. Then Sam Nill had to get used to the image of a man who completely lost control of his mind. The actor brilliantly coped with this task largely due to the fact that at the time of filming he already had considerable experience.
Until 1997, he managed to star in such film works as:
- "Scream in the dark";
- "Dead calm";
- "Confession of the invisible";
- "Jurassic Park";
- "In the jaws of madness";
- "Forgotten silver."
Perfectly played captain role
The image of the restrained and sensible leader of the spaceship Miller went to Lawrence Fishborn. World fame came to him after filming in The Matrix, and before that he was mainly considered a good second-order actor. In his track record before the "Event Horizon" was already involved in the filming of a large number of films, including:
- “Finding Bobby Fischer”;
- “Fair trial”;
- "Apocalypse today";
- "Under cover";
- Othello
- "Thirst for death";
- "Miami Police."
Great female roles
According to the plot of the film, on board the ship among the crew there are women - lieutenants Peters and Stark. Starring Event Horizon, Caitlin Quinlan and Joely Richardson were cast to bring these images to life.
The first actress played Lieutenant Pitters perfectly, who is tormented by terrible visions of her son with bloodied legs. The second actress successfully played the role of a loyal and responsible crew member - Lieutenant Stark.
Interesting facts about the film
The Event Horizon film, the full version of which never hit the wide screen because it contained too explicit scenes of violence, was presented to the audience on 08/15/1997. The worldwide fees from showing this tape collected a very considerable amount - $ 47 million.
The timing of the film was quite short - all the material was shot in almost 4 months, from November 1996 to March 1997. But at the same time, preliminary preparation for the filming of the film and the construction of all the necessary scenery took about 1 month.
Regarding the scenery, it is also necessary to mention a known fact. During the design of the spacecraft, on which all the main events of the tape took place, the drawings of the world-famous Notre Dame Cathedral were taken as the basis.
Voice acting and editing took place in the UK. It is also worth noting that initially Anderson intended to release a soundtrack for the film performed by the famous band Orbital, playing music in techno-and electric power. But for some personal reason, the management of the film studio opposed this idea, and as a result, the music for the tape was recorded as a kind of mix (techno and orchestral music). All musical themes are performed by Orbital together with Michael Kamen.
After the release of the film in free access, information appeared that the spacesuit suits that the actors wore during the filming weighed almost 25 kg. An interesting fact is that if you look very closely at these spacesuits, you can see on each of them a small flag of the country from which a particular character comes from.