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Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 20 Critics What's this?

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Generally favorable reviews- based on 42 Ratings

  • Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill
  • Summary: The year is 2047. Years earlier, the pioneering research vessel Event Horizon vanished without a trace. Now a signal from it has been detected, and the United States Aerospace Command responds. Hurtling toward the signal's source are a fearless captain (Fishburne), his elite crew and the lost ship's designer (Neill). Their mission: find and salvage the state-of-the-art spacecraft. What they find is state-of-the-art interstellar terror. What they must salvage are their own lives, because someone or something is ready to ensnare them in a new dimension of unimaginable fear. (Paramount) Expand
  • Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
  • Genre(s): Adventure, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy, Horror
  • Rating: R
  • Runtime: 96 min
  • More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 20
  2. Negative: 4 out of 20
  1. Event Horizon could have used a decent script, but the director, Paul Anderson, is a stylist to watch.
  2. Director Paul Anderson, whose last film was "Mortal Kombat," well knows how to build suspense and increase tension. But counterbalancing all of that is Event Horizon's position as a sci-fi splatter film, intent on drenching the screen in blood and gore whenever possible. [15Aug1997 Pg 16]
  3. Reviewed by: Ian Nathan
    60
    Superbly styled in techno-Gothic space-grunge chic, this sci-fi/horror cross-breed is a directorial triumph of reference and homage.
  4. The movie is very loud. It is pointlessly loud, arbitrarily loud, assaultively loud.

See all 20 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 16
  3. Negative: 6 out of 16
  1. KurtM.
    10
    I don't understand the bad critics. I feel this film ist the best horror-scifi film since 2000. It's better than Alien 4 (but not better than Alien 1-3). The horror in this film is not only physical it is also psychological. The acting is good to very good. The plot is simple but absolutely OK for a horror movie. And it's also great to see that african american actors not only play roles as cannon fodder or comedic relief. I think some critics are very narrow minded and dogmatic, when they claim a horror movie should only rely on suspense and thinks you don't see". Concluding I i would say that this movie is way to underrated - you don't have to feel like me and give it a 10, but come on this film deserves at least a 8 . Expand
  2. I honestly do not understand the hate the critics had for this film. The primary complaint seems to be that it makes little sense, and its frightening scenes rely on cliches. I don't think either of those complaints are fair. The ship itself literally went to Hell and back, and is even described in the film as having come from "pure chaos". It's not supposed to make sense, because sense is a psychological luxury that probably wouldn't exist in Hell. As for cliches, I don't think that's fair either. I'm not a big horror buff, so maybe I just don't see it, but the psychological and physical torment that occurs in the film came off to me as somewhat creative--at the very least, a very well-done cliche. I can totally see why this is considered a cult classic: it's extraordinarily original in its premise, and watching it is, at times, surreal, and very entertaining.

    Now, if I had one complaint, it would be that it pulls its punches when it comes to horror and gore. Yeah, it's gory, but it's not *that* gory. But I can't knock points off for that because the director himself stated that he was forced by the studio to tone down the gore, which supposedly turned initial audiences off. He's said that he's very sorry he was forced to do that, and he feels it takes away from the effect the film is going for. I'm inclined to agree; for a film essentially about a glimpse into Hell itself, the violence and gore is pretty minor, and I can tell that quite a bit of it was cut or toned down a lot. Still, I liked this film. The characters were entertaining, and the happenings on the ship were creepy, until the final surge of violence at the end as very bad things start to happen. The "final battle" with the main bad guy isn't particularly climactic, though, and his design didn't strike me as creative or particularly frightening. Since the horrors on the ship are personal for each person, I would have imagined the good guy's past mistake that cost someone his life as the form of the bad guy, in his post-mutilation form. Well, that's how I would have done it, anyway. Still, it's an entertaining movie, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again.
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  3. Event Horizon follows a small crew of scientists to the abandoned and thought destroyed ship, the Event Horizon orbiting Neptune. Once on board the Horizon they find things are not quite right; that the ship, with its ability to bend the very fabric of space, has managed to go to an alternate dimension and back resulting in the ships old crew to go insane and kill each other. As the grisly memories echo through the hallways, one of the crew members plans to send the Horizon back to the alternate dimension along with the rest of the crew.
    A well executed psychological horror film with a great cast and some decent scares, plus an interesting plot to tie everything together. Why the critics hate this film I cant understand
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  4. This movie has a certain cult status, which implies that it has no real status, and let me tell you why: IT SUCKS on an gargantuan level.
    The
    first 20 minutes or so are actually pretty good in setting up the mysterious mood, but after the crew enters the "Event Horizon" the movie disintegrates into a string of horror movie cliches. There is really no story at all, the crew is forgettable (except for the two leads) and plausibility and creativity fly straight out of the air-lock.

    This is "haunted house" schlock in space, stay away from this stinker.
    Expand

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