{"id":169386,"date":"2021-01-16T17:00:35","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T17:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/event-horizon-lovecraftian-space-nightmare-ahead-time\/"},"modified":"2021-01-16T17:00:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T17:00:35","slug":"event-horizon-is-a-lovecraftian-space-nightmare-that-was-ahead-of-its-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/01\/16\/event-horizon-is-a-lovecraftian-space-nightmare-that-was-ahead-of-its-time\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Event Horizon’ Is A Lovecraftian Space Nightmare That Was Ahead Of Its Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When Paul W. S. Anderson <\/a>released\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em><\/strong> in 1997, he was fresh off the success of a very different\u00a0kind of\u00a0violent thriller: 1995’s\u00a0Mortal Kombat<\/em>. Anderson’s adaptation of the popular fighting game spawned his relationship with\u00a0Paramount Pictures, which gave the director $60 million<\/a> for\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em> – his third feature film.<\/p>\n

Set in 2047, the film follows\u00a0a group of astronauts\u00a0tasked with recovering a ship lost seven years earlier. The titular craft\u00a0suddenly reappears in orbit around Neptune, where members on board the\u00a0Lewis and Clark<\/em> reluctantly accept their mission to figure out what happened to\u00a0the vessel and its crew. What\u00a0ensues is a tale of thought-provoking cosmic horror that was unappreciated by critics, ignored by audiences, and mired in production woes. Since its poor box office run,\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em> has been\u00a0deemed a cult classic by many horror fans, as well as\u00a0a prime example of Lovecraftian terror that was ahead of its time.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass: What We Know So Far<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Event Horizon<\/em>‘s diverse ensemble cast sets it aside from other big-budget sci-fi ventures<\/a> from the ’90s. Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne co-star as engineer\u00a0Dr. William ‘Billy’ Weir and the\u00a0Lewis and Clark<\/em>‘s commanding officer\u00a0Captain Miller, respectively. Dr. Weir\u00a0is the designer of the\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em> ship, an experimental spacecraft constructed to move faster than the speed of light by creating a dimensional gateway that bridges the gap between two\u00a0disparate points in the universe.<\/p>\n

The only hint the\u00a0Lewis and Clark<\/em> crew have about the vessel’s whereabouts the past seven years is a disturbing distress signal replete with screams, cries, and omens. Once\u00a0inside the\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em>, the rescue team (joined by Dr. Weir) stumbles upon a scene of carnage, implying everyone on board met a brutal end. After an accident forces the team to\u00a0seek shelter on the ship,\u00a0it\u00a0doesn’t take long for them\u00a0to realize the disappeared Event Horizon<\/em>\u00a0became sentient\u00a0during\u00a0its interdimensional journey – bringing a nefarious, supernatural force back with it from the great beyond.<\/p>\n

When Ensign Justin, played by\u00a0Jack Noseworthy, is sucked into\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em>‘s activated gravity drive and then sucked back out, he’s the first to experience the effects of the malevolent power. From there, the amorphous cosmic menace makes itself known through possessions and hauntings. Horrific visions and dreams terrorize the\u00a0Lewis and Clark<\/em> crew. Dr. Weir is visited by his wife, who died of suicide.\u00a0Kathleen Quinlan’s character Peters, the medical technician, experiences hallucinations of her son covered in lesions and sores. Captain Miller sees a former underling who died on his watch. Instead of generalized scares, the characters in the film are menaced by nightmares that play into their own personal fears, laments, and memories. These heady, psychological\u00a0sequences are matched by some intense on-screen depictions of barbarous, gory violence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Anderson’s choice to combine slow-burning, psychic terror with ghastly mayhem harkens back to other deep-space horror films like\u00a0Alien<\/em><\/a>. The industrial, cavernous ships in\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em>\u00a0are also indebted to Ridley Scott’s film. That being said, the haunted house story\u00a0at the center of the film, one reworked for space exploration, plays on classics like The Haunting\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Shining<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Developing a\u00a0villainous entity that lacks form or motivation suggests an even more\u00a0seminal\u00a0influence: the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. It’s through Lovecraft’s writings that the term cosmic horror emerged. Lovecraft, who produced most of his works during the interwar period of the 20th century, was obsessed with the concept of the unknown, of what terror awaits outside of humanity’s scope. While Lovecraft’s penchant for racism and xenophobia has\u00a0been rightfully put on the chopping block as part of a much-needed reckoning in horror, his style remains all the more prescient in the genre.<\/p>\n

From its opening scene, viewers are given hints at the bloodshed to come in\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em>. By the time the rescue group discovers a video recording of what happened to the\u00a0crew of\u00a0the titular ship, the sense of imminent doom is\u00a0almost overwhelming. The footage showcases the\u00a0crazed astronauts torturing and immolating each other while engaged in a sadistic orgy. The revelation\u00a0that\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em>‘s team went mad and literally decimated each other coincides with deciphering\u00a0a\u00a0line of Latin heard in the distress call: “Save yourself from Hell.”<\/p>\n

At this point, though, it’s far too late for salvation. Dr. Weir, under the influence of the unknown evil, wreaks havoc on board, set upon destroying everyone. What Anderson hoped would be a far more macabre finale was\u00a0toned\u00a0down by Paramount executives, who found all the butchery more gag-inducing than impactful.\u00a0The entire production of\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em>\u00a0was rushed by Paramount<\/a>, forcing Anderson to release a version of the film he felt was subpar. At least 10 minutes of gore were cut, as well as scenes that provide better backstories for some of the supporting characters.<\/p>\n

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With its dense scientific concepts, phantasmagorical\u00a0mythos, and harsh body horror scenes,\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em> did not wow mainstream audiences and critics like Paramount hoped it would when it gave Anderson the green light. One critic for the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/a> wrote that anyone interested in the film should instead\u00a0“put a bucket on” their head and have “a loved one beat on it vigorously with a wrench for 100 minutes.”<\/p>\n

Instead of recognizing\u00a0the film’s nuanced take on the unknowable, unmappable forces that lie beyond humankind’s reach, critics\u00a0focused on\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em>‘s grotesqueness as\u00a0the primary\u00a0reason to skip it. It earned less than half of its $60 million budget back in theatres. Even though it’s far from a perfect film,\u00a0Event Horizon<\/em> manages to take ideas developed\u00a0in previous\u00a0genre ventures and transform them into a visually stunning cinematic experience that avoids cliches. It also challenges audiences by presenting them with a cerebral, unsettling vision of journeying through the solar system – one where the evil lurking around the corner lacks a concrete form. While the release of a director’s cut<\/a> would give\u00a0Event Horizon<\/strong><\/em> the critical reassessment it deserves, this is unlikely to ever happen since most of the excised footage has been lost or destroyed.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0How Clive Barker Became The Director Of ‘Hellraiser’<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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The 1997 movie follows a group of astronauts tasked with recovering a ship lost seven years earlier.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"'Event Horizon' Is A Lovecraftian Space Nightmare That Was Ahead Of Its Time - ITTeacherITFreelance.hk","description":"The 1997 movie follows a group of astronauts tasked with recovering a ship lost seven years earlier."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169387,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169386\/revisions\/169387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}