The First Ever FMS Scarelicious [October] Movie Series - Movie #14: Event Horizon

1997's Event Horizon is a pretty good science fiction/horror movie that starts strong but lost me a little with the histrionics towards the end. 

Set in 2047, the Lewis and Clark is a search-and-rescue ship, heading out past Neptune to find the lost Event Horizon, an experimental spacecraft that disappeared in 2040.  The crew finds the EH, adrift and alone but still fully functional; they also find what appears to be the remains of the crew splattered all over the walls of the ship's bridge.  After some investigation, it appears that the experimental engine - which uses moviescifiscienceystuff to basically fold space/time for instantaneous space travel - took the ship to another dimension ... and brought back a dark passenger.  The rescue crew starts to hallucinate/experience really bizarre and bloody stuff and it is clear that the Event Horizon has no intention of letting them escape back home.

Director Paul W.S. Anderson assembled a really strong cast (Lawrence Fishburne, San Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones, Sean Pertwee, etc.) but unfortunately ignores half of them, focusing on Fishburne, Neill and Quinlan.  Jones and Pertwee are stuck outside for the bulk of the movie, trying to fix their space ship, while Richardson simply disappears for a good half hour, only to reappear not particularly worse for wear, for the end.  Perhaps these folks are the victims of rigorous editing - EH is only 95 minutes long - or maybe the filmmakers just couldn't be bothered to keep up with all their cast.  It may be just as well: Jones's character is more caricature than anything else.

Event Horizon starts off really strong - moody, atmospheric, creepy as hell.  The hallucinations/visions are grim and grotesque and the icky effects are good.  But I lost a little patience with the movie when Sam Neill's character turned into a possessed Pinhead without the pins and started ranting about hell dimensions ... give me scary space movies with aliens or people just going nuts from being out in the black, but spare me the rushed metaphysics.  It's a decent enough scary movie but won't move into my list of favorites.

Next (and last for the Scarelicious series): The Crazies, version 2.0.