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Event Horizon Theatrical release poster Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson Produced by Jeremy Bolt Lawrence Gordon Lloyd Levin Written by Philip Eisner Uncredited: Andrew Kevin Walker Starring Laurence Fishburne Sam Neill Kathleen Quinlan Joely Richardson Music by Michael Kamen Cinematography Adrian Biddle Editing by Martin Hunter Distributed by Paramount Pictures Release date(s) August 15, 1997 August 22, 1997 Running time 96 min Country USA/UK Language English All Movie Guide profile IMDb profile

Ratings Australia:  MA15+ United Kingdom:  18 United States:  R

Event Horizon is a 1997 science fiction horror film that was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson and written by Philip Eisner (with an uncredited rewrite by Andrew Kevin Walker). Although it did not do well at the box office upon its release, it has since been considered by some as a cult film.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Cast 3 Production and design 4 Soundtrack 5 Reference to "Event Horizon" in "Lost" 6 References 7 External links

In the year 2047, faint radio signals from the starship Event Horizon, which had disappeared under mysterious circumstances seven years earlier, are picked up on Earth. The ship has been found in a decaying orbit around the planet Neptune, and the rescue ship Lewis and Clark is dispatched to investigate. The crew, which includes the Event Horizon's designer, Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill), must spend a 56-day journey in stasis in order to reach the ship.

Upon reaching the Event Horizon, Dr. Weir explains what really happened to the ship. The Event Horizon was a top secret prototype vessel equipped with an experimental gravity drive. The drive, designed to fold space-time and create an artificial blackhole, would have allowed the ship to traverse great distances instantaneously. However, during the test run, which was set for Proxima Centauri (the next closest star to our Sun), it vanished without a trace. Scans of the vessel reveal it is devoid of human life, though incomprehensible readings come up during the scans. The crew dismisses it as an equipment malfunction and search for Event Horizon's crew.

As they explore the ship, whose artificial gravity and heating systems are offline, Engineer Justin (Jack Noseworthy) finds his way to the vessel's gravity drive. The drive inexplicably activates, producing a black, liquid-like mirror within its core; Justin, in his curiosity, touches it and is sucked inside. At the same time, the drive produces a large shock wave, damaging the Lewis and Clark. Technician Cooper (Richard T. Jones) manages to pull Justin out of the gravity drive, but he is catatonic.

The damage to the Lewis and Clark forces Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) to transfer the crew over into the Event Horizon while they effect repairs. Although they are able to reactivate the Event Horizon's systems, the ship only has 20 hours' worth of usable oxygen on board. Shortly after this discovery, Justin emerges from his catatonia and, seemingly possessed, tries to eject himself into space through an airlock. Medical Technician Peters (Kathleen Quinlan) attempts to reason with him, but what Justin saw while within the gravity drive has driven him to suicide "If you had seen the things I've seen you wouldn't try to stop me". Though he ejects himself despite her pleas, Captain Miller manages to rescue him.

Following Justin's suicide attempt, everyone onboard the Event Horizon begins experiencing horrible visions, their nightmares brought to life by some malevolent force. They soon discover a degraded ship log which explains what happened. In their attempt to reach Proxima Centauri, the crew of the Event Horizon had actually created a gateway to an alternate dimension considered by them to be analogous to Hell. The crew killed each other upon being exposed to this horror. At the end of the recoverable portion of the log, the Event Horizon's captain, who has torn out his own eyes, leaves a cryptic message in Latin, initially heard as Liberate me ("Save me") but later more clearly interpreted as Liberate tutemet ex inferis ("Save yourself from Hell"). The latter interpretation stems from the fact that, wherever they went, they brought something back which is intent on going home, preferably with the crew in tow.

With this revelation, Captain Miller decides to destroy the ship. To prevent this, the ship manages to corrupt Dr. Weir by forcing him to relive his wife's suicide. Weir demands that Miller not destroy the Event Horizon, but Miller refuses. Weir retreats into the ship, and like the deceased captain before him, gouges his eyes out. He explains that they won't need eyes where they're going.

Weir destroys the Lewis and Clark and brutally kills several of the crew members who try to stop him from activating the gravity drive. Weir engages the ship's gravity drive on a 10-minute countdown to initiation in order to return the ship to "Hell", but is subsequently blown out into space by a ruptured window. In order to save his crew, Miller begins to activate the explosives in the "neck" of the ship, which will propel the command module away from Neptune while simultaneously leaving the drive section to fall into the wormhole created by the gravity drive. Miller manages to arm the explosives, but is forced into the drive section by a vision of his friend who burned to death. Miller manages to overcome the vision, revealing his burned comrade to be a mutilated Dr. Weir (with his eyes restored), who has been brought back by the ship "I told you, she won't let me leave, she won't let anyone leave". Miller uses a remote trigger to detonate the explosives, sending his crew to safety while he and Weir fall into "Hell" together.

Lieutenant Starck (Joely Richardson) and Cooper, together with the comatose Justin survive. When a second rescue team arrives for them, Starck is tormented by yet another nightmare, but this is merely a delirium (same as Dr. Weir has in the beginning of the movie, suggesting that the evil is now within Starck), and it is revealed that they have indeed been rescued. As the camera pulls out through the door to the rescue ship, the door on the Event Horizon's side begins to slowly close.

• Laurence Fishburne as Capt. Miller
• Sam Neill as Dr. William Weir
• Kathleen Quinlan as Peters (Med Tech)
• Joely Richardson as Lt. Starck (Executive Officer)
• Richard T. Jones as Cooper (Rescue Tech)
• Jack Noseworthy as Justin (Engineering)
• Jason Isaacs as D.J. (Trauma)
• Sean Pertwee as Smith (pilot)
• Peter Marinker as Capt. John Kilpack
• Holley Chant as Claire (Weir's wife)
• Barclay Wright as Denny (Peters' son)
• Noah Huntley as Burning man/Edward Corrick
• Robert Jezek as Rescue 1 technician

The first draft of Philip Eisner's screenplay was written in 1992. The film borrows elements from others in the science fiction and horror genres, such as Stanisław Lem's Solaris, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Alien, Aliens, Forbidden Planet, The Haunting, Disney's The Black Hole, The Shining, Flatliners and Hellraiser. For instance, the interior of Lewis and Clark was inspired by the starship Nostromo from Alien. The film is thematically similar to The Haunting and The Shining, complete with the added homage of a tidal wave of blood. The film's basic premise of a forbidden portal to a hostile alien dimension that generates madness, nightmares and violence on a supernatural level is derivative of the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, especially his Cthulhu mythos and stories such as "The Dunwich Horror" and "Call of Cthulhu".

In keeping with the naturalistic science fiction setting of the film, costumes are based upon present day flight suits complete with shoulder patches and modified navy rank insignia. The sailing ship in the center of the Lewis and Clark's mission patch is a United States Coast Guard Cutter in reference to the ship's search and rescue role.

The flag depicted on Dr. Weir's uniform is a variation of the flag of Australia with the Aboriginal flag replacing the Union Flag. Other crewmembers also have modified flags on their uniforms to suggest political change prior to 2047; one shows the flag of the United States with fifty-five stars, while another shows the European Union flag with an extra circle of stars within the original one, suggesting an enlarged Union, although in reality the European flag has a fixed number of 12 stars deliberately lacking political connotations.

After releasing the highly successful Mortal Kombat in 1995 Anderson was offered the movie. The release-date had already been set and Anderson agreed to do the movie, despite that the deadline meant that the post-production period was severely reduced. On the commentary Anderson cited this as the main-cause for the many troubles faced during production and especially when Anderson was to make decisions on the final cut.

On the commentary Anderson mentioned his wish to direct an R rated picture after the PG-13 rated Mortal Kombat and mentioned he turned down the opportunity to direct X-Men in order to make Event Horizon.

Anderson claims that his initial cut of the film, before the visual effects had been completed, ran to about 130 minutes in length. The film was even more graphic in this incarnation, and both test audiences and the studio were unnerved by the gore. Paramount ordered Anderson to cut the film by 30 minutes and delete some of the violence, a decision that he regrets. Some of the lost scenes were offered as special features but were taken from poor-quality video tape, the only form they now exist in; the studio had little interest in keeping unused footage and the original film has been lost.^[1]

The score of the film was written and performed by Orbital and Michael Kamen. The end credit theme was the song "Funky Shit" by Prodigy. The movie has been extensively sampled by many bands, notably on Zao's 1999 album, Liberate Te Ex Inferis, (a phrase which is similar to one that occurs in the dialog of Event Horizon), and Massachusetts Death/grind band Terminally Your Aborted Ghost (sampling "Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see"). Finnish black metal band Flauros has also used that dialog on their song "Monuments of Weakness" Several samples also appear in the song "The Technogoat" from The Codex Necro album by Anaal Nathrakh as well as on The Ichneumon Method album by The Axis of Perdition, the song "Fun with Knives" (from the album of the same name) and "The Dark Inside Me" by Velvet Acid Christ and on the song "Age of Suffering" by Norwegian death metal band Bloodthorn from the album Under the Reign of Terror. Popular trance producer John Graham under the alias Space Manoeuvres created the track "Stage One" which took samples from the theatrical trailer of the film. Industrial band Front Line Assembly also made liberal use of such samples on its Implode album, most notably on the track "Synthetic Forms." The phrase "have you ever seen a fire in zero gravity? It's beautiful" was sampled by drum and bass producer Dom And Roland in 2001.

The Latin phrase translated as "Save yourselves from Hell," at a key point during the film appears in a remarkably similar setting in the TV-show "LOST." During the episode "Lock down" in the second season, a cryptic map appears on a blast door within the mysterious Swan hatch. Along with many other obscure references, is the same Latin phrase. "[LOST]" fans have speculated as to whether this is merely a shout-out to "Event Horizon," or may imply that phenomenon related to the gravity drive was being tested by the Dharma scientists whose "incident," forced the creation of the button system featured prominently during the second season of "LOST." The entire hatch and button system were destroyed in an unexplained phenomenon that may have distorted the space-time continuum at the conclusion of Season 2. The series has also featured a number of other references to black holes.

• Event Horizon at the Internet Movie Database
• Event Horizon at Rotten Tomatoes
• Event Horizon at Box Office Mojo

v • d • e Films directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Shopping (1994) • Mortal Kombat (1995) • Event Horizon (1997) • Soldier (1998) • The Sight (2000) • The Glow (2002) • Resident Evil (2002) • AVP: Alien Vs. Predator (2004) • Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) • Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) • Death Race (to be realised in 2008)