After disappearing for seven years, the revolutionary spaceship Event Horizon is rediscovered. The team of scientists sent to investigate discovers something far more terrifying than any of them could have imagined. A film by Paul W.S. Anderson, starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones, Jack Noseworthy, Jason Isaacs, and Sean Pertwee.
EVENT HORIZON
Paul W.S. Anderson
(1997)
In 2015, humans successfully established a base on the Moon. By 2035, commercial mining operations began on Mars. In 2040, the spacecraft Event Horizon was built to explore deep space, but mysteriously disappeared without a trace after passing Neptune.
Seven years later, U.S.A.C. vessel Lewis & Clark, led by Captain S.J. Miller (Laurence Fishburne) and a crew consisting of pilot W.F. “Smitty” Smith (Sean Pertwee), executive officer Lieutenant M.L. Starck (Joely Richardson), medical technician Peters (Kathleen Quinlan), chief engineer Ensign F.M. Justin (Jack Noseworthy), medical doctor D.J. (Jason Isaacs), and rescue technician T.F. Cooper (Richard T. Jones), sets out on a top-secret search and rescue mission. Only Dr. William ‘Billy’ Weir (Sam Neill) knows its true purpose.
The crewmembers Starck and Smitty express their concerns about the journey to Neptune, pointing out that there’s nothing out there and if something goes wrong, they’ll be completely on their own. Captain Miller dismisses their worries, explaining that they must follow orders.
Peters and D.J. prepare Dr. Weir for the grav tanks that will protect his body during the trip. Without these tanks, the 30G force from the ion drive would liquify his skeleton. The drive enables the spaceship to travel at approximately 889 kilometers per second.
Fifty-six days later, as the Lewis & Clark approaches Neptune, Dr. Weir experiences a nightmarish dream. In it, he wakes up alone while the rest of the crew remains asleep in their tanks after hearing his wife Claire (Holley Chant) calling for him. Following the sound, he finds Claire sitting in one of the crew seats. Suddenly she appears behind him with blood-red eyes. Weir jolts awake from the nightmare to find himself still in his grav tank.
The rest of the crew also awakens from stasis and gathers in the common area. Smitty announces they’ll be entering Neptune’s orbit in about two hours and 23 minutes. Captain Miller introduces the crew to Dr. Weir, and when Cooper questions why they’re really out here, Miller simply responds that Dr. Weir should be the one to explain.
Dr. Weir reveals to everyone that U.S.A.C. (US Aerospace Command) has intercepted radio signals and confirmed they’re coming from the Event Horizon. Officials had previously claimed the deep space exploration vessel exploded due to a reactor malfunction.
In reality, the Event Horizon was a highly classified government project designed by Dr. Weir himself. Its purpose was to create a spacecraft that could travel faster than light. Dr. Weir explains that while they can’t break the law of relativity, they can go around it.
According to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible because it serves as the universe’s ultimate speed limit. As an object accelerates closer to light speed, its mass increases exponentially, requiring infinite energy to reach or exceed that velocity. Additionally, exceeding light speed would disrupt causality, allowing effects to precede causes and breaking the fundamental relationship between time and space. At near-light speeds, time dilation and length contraction also distort reality: time slows to a stop, and distances collapse in the direction of motion for the traveler. While massless particles like photons can travel at light speed, objects with mass are bound by these laws, making faster-than-light travel incompatible with our current understanding of physics.
The ship doesn’t actually travel faster than light; instead, its revolutionary Gravity Drive folds space so that points A and B temporarily coexist in the same space and time. This creates a gateway allowing the vessel to instantly jump between locations that are light years apart.
The Gravity Drive in Event Horizon is based on several advanced scientific principles. At its core is Einstein’s general relativity, which explains how massive objects can warp the fabric of space-time, creating gravity. The gravity drive would theoretically manipulate this warping to fold space or create shortcuts between distant points, often through the use of wormholes, hypothetical tunnels that could connect two separate locations in the universe for instantaneous travel. To achieve this, the drive would likely require enormous amounts of energy and possibly exotic matter with negative energy density.
Though unable to verify live contact aboard the Event Horizon, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) intercepted a single transmission, a chilling audio stream of what sounded like screams. Weir plays the same recording, which Houston had processed through multiple filters. Beneath the noise, a human voice emerges, though Weir admits he can’t determine if it qualifies as language. D.J. cuts in, insisting it sounds like Latin. He translates the phrase “Liberate me” as “Save me.”
Upon reaching the Event Horizon, they find no signs of life. Suddenly, an explosion occurs, severely damaging the Lewis and Clark. Captain Miller orders everyone to evacuate to the Event Horizon.
They soon discover that the Event Horizon didn’t merely jump across space. It crossed into another universe in a different dimension and returned with something from that realm.
The film was not successful, receiving poor reviews from critics and earning only $42 million against a production budget of $60 million.
Personally, I find this movie highly enjoyable for its innovative approach to science fiction, impressively connecting it with horror elements. It definitely deserves its status as a science fiction cult classic.
EVENT HORIZON was theatrically released in the United States on 15 August 1997 and in the United Kingdom on 22 August.
After its release on DVD in 1998, the film sold extremely well, prompting the studio and director to consider releasing a Director’s Cut. However, this ultimately never materialized because much of the footage was lost due to poor storage practices.
Instead, Paramount Pictures released a two-disc special edition that included deleted scenes, extended scenes, and various behind-the-scenes features.
To celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary, EVENT HORIZON 4K UHD Blu-ray SteelBook edition debuted on 9 August 2022, featuring a Dolby Vision transfer sourced from a 4K scan of the original camera negative, with a standard edition following on 17 November 2022, and a SteelBook reprint arriving on 12 March 2024.
The video quality is a standout, with natural film grain enhancing detail and depth, deep black levels, vivid colors, and stable whites. The audio retains its original Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. Bonus features are included on the accompanying Blu-ray disc and feature legacy content such as director commentary, behind-the-scenes documentaries, deleted scenes, and trailers.
