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On The Trippy Badness of 'Event Horizon.'

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This entry was posted on 3/29/2008 5:34 PM and is filed under So Damn Bad It's Great, Humor.

Ever since Ridley Scott's "Alien," movie studios have been trying to capture the intensity and brilliance of that particular haunted house in space. Most of them miss the mark by a mile, completely disregarding that film's genius of structure, design and editing. "Alien" is still a relevant, thrilling movie because of its architecture...and I'm not referring to the sets, nor the H.R. Giger flourishes of sadomasochistic fantasy. The pace of "Alien" lures the audience into a false sense of complacency, and then misdirects us to think that we are watching a sci-fi 'discovery' film...before it pops its cork and ramps up the speed (and the scares.)

In my view, the last fifteen minutes of "Alien," an uncomfortable roller-coaster rush through tunnels and jarring cuts in the print of the film, is made much more effective by the gentle pans and 'truckers in space' scenes from the first fifteen minutes. None of the imitators get this; they go for the jugular right from the start. You never become emotionally invested in the characters and you never settle into the reality of the film. It's just Kill, Alien, Kill all the way through...and that's pretty dull. "Alien" tells us a complete story...it's clones replicate a mere chapter. (A non-science fiction yarn that learned the plot lesson well is the horror flick "Hostel," which takes a sharp left turn from the 'frat boys fucking through Europe' yarn that drops you on your ass.)

So most of these "Alien" wannabes just suck...boring the audience with gore and the easy kill. The "Species" movies are notably bad: an endless series of set-up and bloody resolutions that the audience can see from miles away ("Species" even has a Giger monster and takes the sexual connotation from impled to literal.) However, one such haunted house in space is so deeply bad, it's freakin' great...the late-1990s claptrap, "Event Horizon."

Right from the start, "Event Horizon" makes a wrong move, with the opening title credits set to instrumental techno while we swirl towards the center of the universe's most kickin' black hole. You don't want to scream...you want to dance, baby, dance! Seriously...welcome to the rave kiddies. Get out your twirling lollipops and glow sticks. I'll take your brain to another dimension. Pay close attention.

After our adventure in the black hole, we get the standard sci-fi super-imposed screen script, which outlines the future history of humans in space. We get Hiltons on the moon in 2015, and begin mining Mars in the 2030's, which...for the record, means nothing to the plot, what little of that there is. Finally, we discover in 2040 that "Deep Space Research Vessel 'Event Horizon'...disappears without a trace beyond the eight planet, Neptune [in case you are retarded,]. It is the worst space disaster on record." And 'now,' in 2047...the ship is baaaaaack.

(SIDEBAR: don't you wish that the people who wrote these damn movies would push all of this shit a little farther in the future? In the late 1990's, it didn't seem like we'd be going to the moon anytime soon...and now it's 2008! Still no moon progression, to say nothing of those Martian mines.)

Cue freaky dream moment from Sam Neill (a long way from 'The Piano' and 'Jurassic Park') who sees a horror-movie dead dude floating in the ship before jostling awake to think of...his dead wife Claire? 'Dr. Weir' and his wife must have had some pretty freaky sex is all I'm saying.

Anyhoo, Dr. Weir gets onboard the rescue ship 'Lewis & Clark' to go with them to pick up the 'Event Horizon.' It's here we meet Laurence Fishburne and his crew. Good ol' Larry gets the ball rolling into Bad Movie heaven with this gem of a line: "Someone drops the ball, we get the call." They all go into this film's version of 'hypersleep,' complete with chambers and all (see basically every fucking science-fiction movie...ever,) and high-tail it to Neptune.

Along the way, Dr. Weir dreams his wife is on the ship...and she's "so alone." But it's pretty hard to take any of this seriously as the costume department has dropped Sam Neill into these tight, gray "under-boxers" that are (a) wet and (b) pulled up to right under his belly button, creating a little muffin top of flab along the rim. He wanders to the bridge, nipples ready to cut glass, where he sees his dead wife, who's "waiting" and has no eyes. Neill does this hysterical "Argh-ohhh" style terror-fear scream, which kind of sounds like a baritone warming up for the opera...and then wakes for real in his hyperspace tube.

We get to see the rest of the crew in these weird, half-naked undergarments, where Richard T. Jones decides to set back the evolution of men by asking Julia from 'Nip/Tuck' (known as 'Stark' here) if "she'd like something hot and black inside her." Had she said "yes," this would have been a much better movie, I assure you.

Now, in case you couldn't read the text at the start of the flick, altogether possible in modern America, have no fear! The story of the doomed ship 'Horizon' is retold by Weir & Friends, a near-verbatim monologue of what we, the people, read just ten minutes prior. This scene perfectly illustrates just how crappy "Event Horizon" is going to be, as Fishburne introduces the crew to the Doctor in a laundry list of names and ranks. 'Cause you know, people actually talk like that. And 'cause you know, they wouldn't have been introduced already...upon boarding the ship. Not that it matters one whit what their names and ranks are...unlike "Alien," where you met the characters organically and realistiically...and perhaps cared what happened to them, "Horizon" doesn't care! Let's get to the haunted house, already! Kill, baby, kill...so we can dance to the techno that has mysteriously vanished from the soundtrack!

It seems the Event Horizon is back, and Fishburne and his peeps are to secure it and tow it back from Neptune. Dr. Weir also informs the crew that the 'official report' leaves out that the ship housed a drive intended to create an artificial singularity, and thus travel at faster-than-light speed. Weir uses the very scientific technique of poking a hole through a folded piece of magazine paper and flying a pencil through to make his point, because these very experienced space jockeys can't grasp words like "folding space and time" and "gravity drive."

Anyway, the crew listens to a sole transmission made by the ship, which is a bunch of screams and a guy speaking in the dead language of Latin (because I'm sure that in the next fifty years it's making a comeback.) The dude seems to be saying "Liberate meh" which means "save me," according to the trauma specialist (and substitute linguist...it seems nobody at ground control, which combed over the transmission speaks Latin...or cares.)

This doesn't deter the 'Lewis & Clark,' who demonstrate their skills through a near-collision with the 'Event Horizon' in Neptune's upper atmosphere, because...you know...if we have the technology to travel in space in the future, we apparently haven't figured out a way to not fly toward shit at zillions of miles an hour. Or maybe the writers just wanted another little 'goose.'

Here's where "Event Horizon" begins its beautiful launch into the Bad Movie stratosphere. For starters, the ships are wonderfully rendered...but Neptune, once inside the atmosphere, resembles a fog machine on 'high.' This high-tech/low-tech nonsense continues when they enter 'Event Horizon' itself: a vast, amazingly detailed space...with near-cartoon-like CGI crap floating in the zero-gravity. Hysterically, even though the ship is in "deep freeze" a CGI-cartoon bottle of water still makes the 'slooshy' sound. OK, maybe it's 'near-deep-freeze.' They also come across a series of explosive devices that will blow the central corridor of the ship, separating the front part from the rear 'gravity drive' part. The crew can then use the front as a "lifeboat." What's especially funny is that the bombs are labeled as 'explosives' and have a little graphic demonstrating just what 'explosives' do...but Fishburne still asks "What are these?"

Now, while 'Event Horizon' is very detailed and wonderfully designed, it most certainly comes from the 'Star Trek' school of sci-fi 'reality' versus the 'Lewis & Clark,' which, despite being in this great-bad movie, really resembles what you'd expect a spaceship to look like. The latter is all wires and buttons, all duct-tape paired to wear and tear. 'Event Horizon' looks like a Gothic Club. Or an S&M club for Klingons.

Some of the crew wanders around the ship for what seems like forever...until Justin, or 'Baby Bear,' comes across the tunnel to the gravity drive chamber...or maybe a really awesome Vegas hangout. Seriously. Talk about taking the 'Star Trek' method of utterly impossible reality and bringing it to life. It's a long tube with holes in it that rotates, while multi-colored lights coalesce inside the holes, creating an effect much like taking mushrooms, I'd imagine. Why doesn't the space shuttle have this, exactly? Imagine the crazy-sexy-fun in space aboard the U.S.S. Danceteria!

At the other end is the gravity drive itself...a big mass of rotating circles and balls covered with creepy rivets and such. The circles all align and shine 'Diva' light on Justin as the center circle becomes a mass of black. You almost expect Whitney Houston to emerge and sing us a ditty. Justin, clearly retarded, reaches out to touch the black mass and is pulled in. The circle barfs some special effects which somehow rupture the other ship, which forces all the crew onto the good ship 'Event Horizon.'

They run the ship's log through some 'filters' to see the captain holding his eyes out to the camera (while speaking mother-fucking LATIN,) while the rest of the crew appears to have an...orgy? Seriously...they are rubbing up against each other naked, covered in Ketchup or something. Hardly hell...and hardly scary.

It's onboard where the crew begins to have visions and such...well, some of the crew who made it past the budget police begin to have visions and such, while others are just...fine! Fishburne sees an old crew member on fire, "Mama Bear" sees her son, and Dr. Weir sees his dead wife, who pokes his eyes out! Dr. Weir also blows up the other ship (because he's crazy,) slices and dices another crew member (because the ship made him crazy) and can fire pretty damn accurately for a dude with no eyes (because this movie is crazy.) 

Dr. Weir eventually gets sucked out into space (and is unbelievably replaced by another guy who survived the bombing of the 'Lewis & Clark,' used his oxygen tanks as propulsion back to the 'Event Horizon,' all the while mantaining his 'cool.') But have no fear: Weir appears again as an apparation of the ship: naked, sliced and bald...just the way you've always wanted to see middle-aged white guys, eh? Weir also traps Fishburne on the gravity end of the ship (where he's planning to blow the first part way and save two random crew members...random because they didn't get visions.) It's here where the movie decides to hold nothing back. Weir repeats "do you see" over and over and over and over again, while holding Fishburne's face...who sees quick-cut images of his crew, himself, and random people we've never seen prior, being tortured, sliced and diced. 

Best of all, there are survivors, and Fishburne goes to the other dimension...which means sequel, people! I honestly can't wait to see that one.

Inexplicably, this utter piece of shit has become a cult classic. Mind you, not a Bad Movie cult classic...but a loved sci-fi flick. Clearly the eye removal fetish has passed beyond fiction and into our reality. "Do you see?" 

  

 

 
 

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