The Event Horizon is a deep-space vessel that is launched in the year 2040, to explore the depths of space and to eventually reach Alpha Centauri.  However, the ship disappears and remains lost for seven years, until it mysteriously appears somewhere near the eighth planet, Neptune.

This is where the story begins for us.  A search and rescue vessel called the Lewis and Clark, led by Capt. Miller (Laurence Fishburne) is soon sent on a classified mission to Neptune.  After spending about two months in stasis, they arrive near Neptune.  Among their crew is Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill).  Weir explains the details of the mission to them.  He says that the Event Horizon (he designed the ship) is powered by what is called a gravity drive - a device that creates an artificial black hole, which acts as a gateway allowing the ship to travel interstellar distances in virtually no time.  The Event Horizon vanished along with it's entire crew just as they activated the gravity drive.  So the Lewis and Clark crew has been assigned to find out exactly what happened to the ship, and where it was all these seven years!

As soon as they reach the Event Horizon though, the Lewis and Clark find it to be a dead ship.  The entire crew is dead, there's no gravity, and the entire place is almost frozen (due to a coolant leak).  But... there ALSO are some very weird life-signs in the ship.  It's as if the entire ship is somehow alive!  Soon, strange things start happening - Capt. Miller and his crew all experience strange visions, they encounter their worst fears, brought to life for them by the ship!  And Dr. Weir starts acting more and more strangely.  What is going on in this ghost ship?

This is one nasty movie.  And I mean that in a good way.  The interiors of the Event Horizon are all very creepy - it seems they were inspired by Gothic designs.  Plenty of scary and gory goings on take place and the entire movie has a rapid, in-your-face style.  The whole gravity drive/artificial black hole idea was fascinating to me, as was the idea of the "alternate dimension" where the ship was supposed to have been in those seven years.  We only get to see glimpses of this dimension (from the Event Horizon's ship logs), though (I would have liked to see more!).  A nicely made movie!

It seems director Paul Anderson was forced to cut several minutes from the film in order for it to get an R rating in the US.  All this footage obviously was graphic depiction of torture/violence in that "alternate dimension" I was talking about.  In fact, on the official site for the movie, there are some pictures of these scenes not in the final movie.

A short clip from this movie (the opening scene actually, with the zoom into the corpse floating on the Event Horizon's bridge!) also appears towards the end of the Star Trek: Voyager episode Random Thoughts (Season 4, Episode 10).

Running Time: 95 minutes | Country: US | Genre: Horror/Science Fiction