Paul WS Anderson's Event Horizon is arguably the Mary Celeste of science fiction cinema, not just the story of a ship adrift in the vast oceans of space but the film itself falling victim to malevolent forces (Paramount Studios) and mutilated, the missing portions gone forever.
Romantic? Yes. The film?
In 2047 (not impossibly far off--our present has caught up with Blade Runner's future for one) the USAC search and rescue vessel Lewis and Clark has been sent to recover the Event Horizon, a starship lost on its maiden voyage some seven years before.
The larger ship is a magnificent presence: massive hammerhead prow (looking like the kind of forged-steel mallet the god Vulcan might wield to strike sparks off his anvil) graceful swan neck two wings sprouting from either side of a blunt goose belly. Anderson invests these opening sequences with a sweeping operatic grandeur--his camera pulls back from an upside-down window to the long-shot view of a low-orbit station in a dizzying slow spiral that reportedly cost a fifth of the film's budget; introduces the Event Horizon like a derelict floating off the edge of gas giant Neptune (faint flash of lightning bolts sizzling far below).
An early sequence has Dr. Weir (Sam Neill) waking up from cryosleep aboard the Lewis and Clark, amniotic fluids draining to release him; he looks round and the sight of bodies in ghostlit suspended animation feels dreamlike eerie, the camera slowly circling underlining his vulnerability (we keep expecting an arm to reach out from the edge of the frame and tap his shoulder). He wanders into the ship's control cabin and sees his dead wife Claire seated and naked facing away from him, sees her reflection on a dead screen (are her eyes shut?). She turns; her eyes are shut. We're burrowed deep into our own chairs at this point armrests in a death grip, looking for an eject button to push.
The early scenes are best, showcasing Anderson's visual virtuosity. He's one of the more interesting genre filmmaker around, a keen eye apparently determined to confine himself to genre productions (video game adaptations in Mortal Kombat; science-fiction combat horror in the Resident Evil movies; historical disaster-romance in Pompeii). Like Tarantino he's a fan of pop and pulp (literally, in some cases) cinema, mashing categories together to create monstrous combinations like a mad scientist in his testtube-arrayed lightningbolt-lit laboratory deep in the castle dungeons (or high up a mountain aerie); unlike Tarantino he's a genuine filmmaker who knows how to let images flow, edit rhythm into his footage, use silence and stillness to build a sense of near-unbearable dread.
This film I submit is Anderson's 2001 (I know I know; try not to sip hot coffee when reading) his heedlessly expensive tribute to the testicle-shrinking size of the universe and the elegantly designed machines man has constructed to explore all that territory; the Event Horizon is strictly out of Alien only more cogently assembled (the Nostromo for all its industrial-gothic atmosphere doesn't really make much schematic sense), the more disturbing horror elements seemingly borrowed from both Clive Barker's Hellraiser (Hell as an S&M theme park) and Andrei Tarkvosky's Solaris (the different characters' past histories come back to haunt them).
Along the way Anderson has commissioned spectacular sets--the Event Horizon tho impressive outside is even more impressive inside: the swan neck an endless Grand Canal of an artery lit sinister amber; the engine room passageway a tunnel full of serrated blades ("looks like a meatgrinder" someone notes--the nickname given to a tunnel in Tarkovsky's other major science-fiction effort Stalker); the engine room a great medieval chamber studded with spikes and clockwork gears lit by spotlights and dominated by a series of massive spinning rings that when lined up reveal a pool of unreadable water.
Is the film any good? Hard to tell with reportedly thirty minutes cut out; what's left is barely functional, with characters developing crazy obsessions (Dr. Weir insists on salvaging the Event Horizon despite everything that's happened) and unlikely conclusions being pulled like rabbits out of rear ends ("What are you telling me, that this ship is alive?" "You wanted an answer and it's the only one I've got."). I'm reminded of Kurt Russell's Sgt. Todd in Soldier (arguably my favorite Anderson)--didn't vocalize much but did speak volumes with his morose deadpan face (on the other hand characters in Event Horizon vocalize plenty but don't reveal much about who they are or what they're about). The ending is out of desperation: shock cuts and illogical effects (the Lewis and Clark suddenly flooding a la The Shining with blood) and bodies being tossed about in slow motion. One wishes Anderson had been allowed the time to shoot and assemble the film he wanted the same time one wonders if Anderson had anything in mind to actually shoot (if not then no amount of extra budget or time could have saved the production).
And yet and yet and yet one can't help but form some kind of attachment to this horribly disfigured film full of horrible disfigurement (Anderson being a filmmaker seems naturally obsessed with the jellylike vulnerability of eyes). Not a hundred percent sure why, possibly the daemonic forces in me feeling mischievous and acting up. Which is a little scary right there.
First published in Businessworld 11.7.19
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