MISCONCEPTION ABOUT THIS MOVIE: I've seen quite a few reviews say the airlock scene in this movie is unrealistic. In this movie, a person is exposed to the vacuum of space for about a minute and survives. The general consensus among many reviewers is that this is inaccurate. On the contrary, however, if you expel the air from your lungs before exposure to vacuum, you'll likely survive but with potential injuries. So, this movie's portrayal of space exposure is actually quite accurate! This is the main reason I decided to write a review, I feel the need to hopefully get others to realize this is not a problem in the movie. Certain animal studies in the 60's by NASA exposed dogs and chimpanzees to near-vacuum for 90 seconds up to 5 minutes with surprising results. I recommend reading about them.

MY REVIEW: If you're looking for your usual sci-fi flick with aliens and space battles and gunfights, this isn't it. This is, however, an excellent sci-fi film that I HIGHLY recommend you go into blind. I knew a little bit about the story and I wish I hadn't - would've made it that much better! I still highly enjoyed it, however; one of the best sci-fi flicks I've seen in a very long time! And this was the first time I've ever seen it.

You will likely be spooked and, if not, at least a little disturbed by this movie. But in a good way.

I have the original Blu-ray that was released years ago. I pre-ordered this in the hopes of getting something that I did NOT get. But it wasn't a complete loss...

The obvious bad news, that I'm sure anyone who was excited for this already knows, is that there is no extended or director's cut here. Nor any signs of new footage. The "extended and deleted scenes" are simply the regurgitated 3 scenes from the previous release.

Sadly, MOST of special features are from the previous blu-ray.

That's the bad news.

The semi-good news is that the interviews are all new. Unfortunately there is no sign of Sam Neil or Laurence Fishburne, but there is some interesting bits here and there. All in all, they amount to about a little over an hour, and even with the interesting bits, sadly, they can still be skipped.

And the good, actually great, news is the movie itself....

The 4K transfer is leagues above the previous release. To me, the movie actually had a completely different feel to it, as the improvement was that noticeable. Much sharper, and, surprisingly much more colorful, where you actually notice all the colors in this otherwise dark movie. It IS worth the upgrade for this transfer alone...

And the movie comes with a slip cover.

However, while the transfer is worth the upgrade, and a must own for the fans of the movie, I would still suggest waiting until the price drops. Shout has good sales every once in a while, and their movies do drop in price eventually.

I would wait until this one at least dropped below the $19.99 mark.

WTF did I just watch? Hellraiser In Space!

The year is 2047 and Dr. William Weir (Sam Neil) is a scientist / engineer on board a space station in low Earth orbit. He has just gotten word of a distress beacon being sent from the spacecraft Event Horizon in orbit around Neptune. He designed the spacecraft and its unique time-and-space-bending engine core gravity drive and sent it on its way seven years ago. Then he lost contact with it and it was assumed all aboard were dead in some tragic accident.

Now it seems to have returned, and he’s got to get there and see what happened.

He catches a ride there on the Lewis And Clark, a ship run Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne) and a crew of six. Nobody on the Lewis and Clark want to go on this mission because they haven’t had a vacation in a long time, so they are less than welcoming when the good doctor boards.

They are even less pleased when they get to the Event Horizon and seriously messed up things start happening. Apparently, this engine core gravity drive has opened a gateway to Hell, and each member of the crew is faced with their greatest fears.

Random Thoughts:

Sam Neil should not have been allowed to run around shirtless. Nobody wants to see that.

The ship log on the Event Horizon was on a CD Rom. Really? The prop people couldn’t imagine a more futuristic solution to data storage?

Why doesn’t anyone on board have a gun? The weapons they choose are knives or saws.

For the most part the design of the space ship and various props was pretty darn good, but there were several consoles and a scanning device that looked embarrassingly dated and cheap. The same goes with the special effects – most were well done but the ones that weren’t really take you out of the moment. The design of the core gravity drive was spectacular. The “special effect” of the crew creeping along in zero-g with “gravity boots” looked really stupid.

This is a good film that could have been a great film with a little more time, and a bigger budget … and a little more of the scenes from Hell (it goes by so quickly). Perhaps they should have “run it through a few filters”.

Recommended.

Most space thriller and horror movies are extremely cheesy. This one is wonderfully true. Instead of the woman saying "I'll go back in the crazy room of Satan", this movie has a real reaction: "I'll do what needs to be done, but I will not go back near that room". Like any smart person would do. I really liked it, and have seen it a few times. Even knowing what comes next, it still holds it's own.

This movie has been unfairly maligned over the years, because people seem to have wanted it to be an Alien style flick. But, it was pure horror with pure boogey-men, not xeno-morphs on the prowl. I'll admit, the film isn't perfect. It could've done with more development of some of the other characters and played with the dynamic between them more, but there are some shudder inducing optics here that make it worth watching. It may not stand out as your all-time favorite, but it will be one you enjoy.

I had never seen Event Horizon before and decided to watch it because I had folks comparing the core in the movie to what CERN has been doing with the opening of portals to other unknown dimensions. Most movies like this aren't for entertainment purposes, as the sleeping sheep believe, but are predictive programming for what's coming upon the earth in these last days. CERN's main LHC is located is directly over where Apollyon is supposed to be held, in the bottomless pit. If this movie is any indication, then CERN, in fooling around with antimatter (which is nothing more than utter chaos and darkness), will end up unleashing that same chaos and darkness onto the earth. A darkness that the Creator of All Things purposely separated from the earth, to protect mankind. All human beings have good and evil within them. But for most of us, that good keeps the evil at bay so that it doesn't consume us. That antimatter will bring out the darkness in every human being that doesn't have a relationship with the Most High, and the LIGHT of His Holy Spirit comforting, guiding and protecting them. It will cause the evil within these people to grow and overtake them, making them physical demons, committing all sorts of wicked acts. People will be faced with their worst fears. That's a very scary thought. So if you don't know the Most High (whom the world calls "God"), may I suggest that you get to know Him NOW, while the window of His mercy is still open?? Because WHEN this time comes upon the earth, and you don't know Him, you're going to wish that you had. But it will all be far too late.

Oh boy, was this bad. On the one hand, Mr. Fishburne shines through the terrible dialogue, somehow making said terrible dialogue seem natural? How does he do it? It's not magic, it's pure talent. Mr. Neil manages to do the same for the most part, and really to be honest the whole cast is way too skilled for this trashy script. If you aren't paying attention, you might miss just how bad the writing is.

But on the other hand, the whole film reads as some kind of bizarre anti-science propaganda. "Don't explore the depths of space, don't get too deep into physics! Why? (SPOLER ALERT) If you do you might open up a dimension to Hell." Like, for one thing, our dimension IS pure chaos. So the basic idea floating beneath this film is itself not particularly salient, even if the only thing you know about chaos theory is from watching Jurassic Park. A dimension of pure chaos does not look like a ship magically gaining some level of conscience and ownership over anyone who walks on it and then trying to catapult them into a place that's literally just being tortured all day and all night for eternity. A dimension of pure chaos looks like a lot of random things happening and then somehow congealing into ecosystems and planets and etc.

Also is it just me or did they rip off an entire scene from another film? (the scene where they explain how the gravity drive has them jump from one point in space to another)

Early entry by Paul W.S. Anderson (of the Resident Evil film series). Cronenbergian body horror meets astrophysics! In some places, the astrophysical concepts are really compelling, but they also get a lot of the basics of physics wrong. This is especially clear in the zero-grav and vacuum of space scenes and depressurizations. The CG is obviously dated, but there is extensive use of incredible practical effects and sets that more than makes up for the deficit. I'm not going to list some of the flaws, because they are obvious and pointed out by others. Breaks a lot of both horror and sci fi tropes, is visually terrific (see linked screencap), and (mostly) well-acted. Baby Bear!