Event Horizon

In 2047, the crew of the Lewis and Clark is dispatched to answer the distress signal of the Event Horizon, an experimental vessel that disappeared without a trace seven years prior on its maiden voyage; what the space explorers find when they board the derelict craft is a haunted ship that may have very well gone to Hell and back. What ensues is a darker variation on “Solaris” as the crew members are taunted and tortured by an unseen evil presence, which ends up especially getting the better of the ship’s enigmatic creator, Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill). Screenwriter Philip Eisner pitched this sci-fi horror film simply as “‘The Shining’ in space,” though it was director Paul W.S. Anderson who hired Andrew Kevin Walker (“Se7en”) to replace Eisner’s tentacled alien antagonists with more Overlook Hotel kinds of elements; indeed, it might be the spirit of ol’ Jack Torrance himself who closes the pod bay doors in the film’s final shot, plunging our poor heroes into what might be a never-ending nightmare somewhere on the dark side of the galaxy. – IFC Staff