Nearly a decade after her mysterious disappearence, Earth receives an SOS from the Event Horizon, a state of the art spaceship that was thought lost on her maiden voyage and is now located in Neptune's orbit. The rescue-vessel "Lewis & Clark" is dispatched to investigate what happened to the crew and to salvage the ship. Among the crew is the inventor of the Event Horizon's highly experimental and top-secret drive, Dr William Weir (Sam Neill), who is plagued by flasbacks of his late wife and very secretive and sceptical about the ship and the strange occurrences they will encounter aboard the Event Horizon. The crew, led by the highly experienced Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) grows suspicious about Weir and the mystery of the long lost ship.
Upon their arrival on board the EH it soon becomes apparent that a catastrophic chain of the events led to the crew's sardistic and violent demise. Torn bodies, blood and bones are all that remain of them, preserved by the vacuum inside the ship. Justin (Jack Noseworthy) discovers the core of the ship, an artificial black hole that enables the EH to reach any point in the universe by creating a gateway or shortcut there. However, where that gateway leads to soon becomes the focus of the inquiries, considering what had happened to the crew. Justin is sucked into the black hole which somehow activated itself. When the crew manages to rescue him they find a deeply traumatized and unresponsive crew-member in Justin.
After its activation the rescue-team start hallucinitating and seeing terrible images. The only clue they have to what might have happened all those years ago is the ship's heavily damaged log. Upon its restoration they discover that the EH has been to a dimension of absolute terror and it brought something back from there, which now possesses an increasingly antagonistic Dr Weir. The fight for their survival ensues...
Event Horizon is a highly imaginative and high-budget Sci-Fi Horror by Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil), that made a noticeable impact on a usually frowned-upon genre. The SFX as well as the acting (largely due to Neill and Fishburne) are superb. The gory images will linger even in hardened Horror-fans minds for quite some time. The level of suspense builds up quickly and is sustained masterfully. There are no cheap and common "Jump out of your seat" moments, rather a psychological element of terror that keeps you clinging on to the arms of your chair.
The downside of the movie is the restrictions imposed upon its director. The original movie was meant to be ca 30 minutes longer than the released version (96 mins). Anderson included far more gore but had to cut it out because of the fact, that the test-audience couldn't stomach it. A decision he now regrets.
The final product is a true masterpiece of the genre, yet the plot suffers noticeably from the cuts. The storytelling feels very rushed at times, allowing minor plotholes to emerge and the character-development becomes a bit too shallow to be convincing.
If you like decent horror or Sci-Fi, Event Horizon comes highly recommended, but I should say that despite the cuts there are still some very gory scenes in it, so don't say you havn't been warned! :)
