**contains spoilers*
It is a well known fact, to most horror fans, that horror and sci-fi hardly ever manage to come together in a coherent way. The tendency is to let the plots slide into cartoonish "it's the creature from out of space-here-to-gobble-us-all". One genre ends up imposing its own clichés upon the under, making the ship sink.
Event Horizon is not the case. Not even remotely. First of all, as already been pointed out, what matters most about this movie is the atmosphere. It is dark, the angles are odd, all the gore attests to a level of insanity and mindless violence that really IS hell.
Instead of re-creating a whole new world or a completely different society as a standard sci-fi would do, Event Horizon takes us to the heart of every day human existence when submitted to endure the horrors of space. And these are Hell.
It is psychological horror in that, in a very factual sense, the character's fears end up being their own perdition. The sphere itself may be responsible for some of the most awful sounds ever to star in a horror movie. It reminds me a bit of nails scratching glass only warped out to get under one's nerves. That it truly accomplishes.
Event Horizon closes the characters within themselves and once they are trapped, there is no escape. That is also a key element of this movie's power...it's ability to present a ending that opens to a never-ending cycle of suffering in a way that differs from the obvious (you know, shark movies that end with ominous shark tale looming in the distance; haunt-stories that finish with some object being moved around; whatever hero/villain gathering strength from the ashes, all the way to the famous classic The Bulb).
I once read a book about the Gothic ethos of horror romances in which it was explained that one of the major sources of fear is morbid reiteration. This movie is a clear proof of that.
Disturbing.
It is a well known fact, to most horror fans, that horror and sci-fi hardly ever manage to come together in a coherent way. The tendency is to let the plots slide into cartoonish "it's the creature from out of space-here-to-gobble-us-all". One genre ends up imposing its own clichés upon the under, making the ship sink.
Event Horizon is not the case. Not even remotely. First of all, as already been pointed out, what matters most about this movie is the atmosphere. It is dark, the angles are odd, all the gore attests to a level of insanity and mindless violence that really IS hell.
Instead of re-creating a whole new world or a completely different society as a standard sci-fi would do, Event Horizon takes us to the heart of every day human existence when submitted to endure the horrors of space. And these are Hell.
It is psychological horror in that, in a very factual sense, the character's fears end up being their own perdition. The sphere itself may be responsible for some of the most awful sounds ever to star in a horror movie. It reminds me a bit of nails scratching glass only warped out to get under one's nerves. That it truly accomplishes.
Event Horizon closes the characters within themselves and once they are trapped, there is no escape. That is also a key element of this movie's power...it's ability to present a ending that opens to a never-ending cycle of suffering in a way that differs from the obvious (you know, shark movies that end with ominous shark tale looming in the distance; haunt-stories that finish with some object being moved around; whatever hero/villain gathering strength from the ashes, all the way to the famous classic The Bulb).
I once read a book about the Gothic ethos of horror romances in which it was explained that one of the major sources of fear is morbid reiteration. This movie is a clear proof of that.
Disturbing.