2382

Seven years ago, the Event Horizon starship went on its first voyage and disappeared. It has now (in 2047), mysteriously reappeared, and a rescue crew has been sent to the source of its distress signal. As the rescue crew tries to figure out what happened to the ship and find potential survivors, they gradually begin to see and hear horrible things linked to their darkest thoughts and memories.

This one gets a content warning for: suicide, cannibalism, and mutilation.

I know I watched this before, but I remembered nothing about it except the flood of red near the end. I did recall that Younger Me found it to be very scary, to the point where I probably spent a good chunk of it with my eyes covered. Maybe that's why I didn't remember much.

Anyway, maybe all my recent horror movie-watching has gradually desensitized me, I'm less of a horror wimp now that I used to be, or the special effects and filming techniques just aren't as scary now, because this wasn't as horrifying as I remembered it being. The final stuff just felt...over the top? The entire time, instead of being scared witless I just found myself thinking "The only tension here is when and how horribly everyone will die." Modern torture porn has set the horribleness bar pretty high, which meant that many of the deaths here came across as mercifully quick and simple.

The initial tension was pretty good, and I wish the movie had done a better job working its psychological horror aspects. We had a mom who was experiencing visions of her son with awful injuries, and a captain getting flashbacks of a man he was once forced to leave behind to die - and instead of using those as starting points for their horror stories and building upon them, those things were the horror peak for both of them. The writer/director seemed to think that the gorier bits were the worst they could throw at the audience, but it was the psychological horror that could have had the most lasting effect.

This also had way too many scenes in which people screamed at each other to be calm. Yelling at someone to calm down is never going to calm them down, but that definitely didn't stop these characters from trying.

One of those times when my memories of a movie made it seem much worse than it actually was. One thing it did accomplish: I was left with a deep longing for the "space is creepy" sci-fi horror of the 1990s. The grungy, lived-in rescue ship gave me strong nostalgic feelings. I want more stuff like this movie...but better.

Extras:

Producer and director commentary I didn't listen to.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

Science Fiction