By a long, long way Event Horizon is the best film on much maligned director Paul W.S. Anderson's resume. Perhaps the nearest he gets is AvP, but that's far from perfect, and then you're left with a choice between Death Race, Resident Evils 1 & 4, Mortal Kombat and the mutant hellspawn that is Soldier. Event Horizon works for several reasons and I find it bizarre that Anderson's not been able to tap into that creativity when working on other projects.
He's got himself a really great cast here from top to bottom, recognising that for an ensemble to work ALL the pieces must be strong actors and relatable to an audience. How Anderson got the headline talent of Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill is any ones guess, but add in posh totty Joely Richardson, quipping Richard T Jones, the intense Jason Isaacs, mumsy Kathleen Quinlan, rookie Jack Noseworthy and legend Sean Pertwee and you have a diverse and genuinely likable crew.
It's basically a haunted house movie in space. The scares are handled well with little of that frantic editing that's cursed Anderson's later work, the photography is well balanced between Tinseltown gloss and gritty reality (with sickly greens being used to induce unease), the Spaceship interior designs amazing (with the Event Horizon herself a blend of Gothic, cathedral architecture, coffin shaped corridors and religious iconography mixed into the mise en scene.
Although not as deep as one might hope in terms of exploring the impact of the 'haunted' ship on the characters it is an intelligent exploration of faith, where that's in God or in Hell, the scares are effective and the story atmospheric. Under-rated.
1 comment:
Very underrated. I watched this again recently, I do at least once a year. It definitely had an influence on Danny Boyles 'Sunshine' and is very much a ghost story with a couple of nods to The shining.
Love it.
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