Event Horizon Has the Smartest Twist in Sci-Fi Movie History

In Hollywood, there is often a temptation from executives and audiences to place movies into one of two categories: “turn your brain off” entertainments or profound films made by auteurs with something to say about the human condition. In reality, though, these things aren’t mutually exclusive. Movies are perfectly capable of having commercial appeal and conventionally entertaining tropes, while also being smartly crafted and thought-provoking. Sure, these films are comparatively rare, but they do exist, and sometimes they come from the most unexpected places — such as when the 1997 sci-fi horror cult classic Event Horizon proved to be much more than it appeared on the surface.

In truth, when Event Horizon was announced, few would have expected much from a scary space movie directed by the young English director of the 1995 video game adaptation, Mortal Kombat. Back then, the idea of a sci-fi horror film set on a spaceship simply brought Ridley Scott’s Alien to mind, and that masterpiece has always been an incredibly tough act to follow. Unfortunately, this comparison likely contributed to Event Horizon‘s failure at the box office, not to mention its hostile reception from critics. However, over the subsequent decades, the movie developed a cult following who believed it was a much better film than anyone gave it credit for at the time, and that its brilliance centered on a mind-bending plot twist that still hasn’t been topped in nearly three decades.

Paul WS Anderson Wanted Event Horizon to Be Different From Alien

A shot from Event Horizon as an astronaut walks through a haunting tunnel

After the enormous box office success of Mortal Kombat, Paul WS Anderson was the talk of mid-’90s Tinseltown. The filmmaker, who would later become synonymous with the Resident Evil franchise, jokingly told Variety magazine in 2022, “The way Hollywood tends to work is when you have a big hit, you’re a genius, and then, as soon as you have a failure, you’re an idiot. I was in my genius phase.”

Anderson was so hot, in fact, that on top of New Line Cinema immediately trying to tempt him back to make the sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Fox also offered him the chance to direct its long-gestating X-Men film.

However, Anderson had just made a movie based on an existing IP, and it didn’t leave him wanting more. Instead, he was itching to direct something original. Crucially, he also wanted to make something darker and give himself license to do some world-building for the first time.

So, when Philip Eisner’s Event Horizon script landed on his desk, he was excited by the possibilities, but also knew it needed some work to separate itself from Scott’s xenomorph-fuelled classic. In this original draft, the crew of a rescue vessel known as the Lewis and Clark board the Event Horizon, a spaceship that has mysteriously reappeared after seven years missing, and soon find themselves menaced by tentacled alien beasts who have dispatched with the original ship’s crew.

Anderson thought the story had huge potential, but he knew that a crew of astronauts being chased down the corridors of a darkened spacecraft by an alien creature was far too similar to Alien in structure and execution. So, he gave the script a major rewrite, which completely altered the threat facing Captain Miller (Lawrence Fishburne), Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill), and the rest of the crew.

In Anderson’s vision of the story, the antagonist wasn’t some slathering intergalactic beast. Instead, the spaceship itself was the threat because it was possessed by the ‘ghosts’ of Hell.

The Event Horizon Ship’s Experimental Gravity Drive Transported It to Hell

In the early going of Event Horizon, it is established that Dr. Weir is the man who designed the ship that became lost in space for so long. He explains to the Lewis and Clark crew that the craft features an experimental gravity drive capable of folding spacetime, which instantly transports it across huge distances. In essence, it can open gateways from one point in space to another and teleport faster than light.

The implications of this become troubling, though, when a distress signal is received which sounds very much like the Event Horizon crew screaming in agony, while a voice says “līberāte mē” in Latin. D.J., the Lewis and Clark’s doctor, translates this as “Save me,” and all thoughts turn to where exactly the Event Horizon has been for seven long years.

Naturally, when Miller and his people board the Event Horizon, they don’t find the crew safe and well. Instead, they are horrified to find evidence of a massacre. When they search for survivors, they begin to experience terrifying visions of their worst fears and regrets made gruesomely manifest. Eventually, D.J. realizes the Latin phrase in the distress signal was actually longer, and the full translation is, “Save yourself from Hell.”

The crew then finds a video log that shows them precisely what happened to the crew of the Event Horizon: they went insane, brutalizing and mutilating each other’s bodies in a grim orgy of sex and violence, all while the Captain cradled his own eyeballs in his palms and recited a terrifying Latin chant.

Finally, the truth becomes clear to D.J., who delivers a theory that chills all the characters to the bone. He believes the Event Horizon’s gravity drive must have inadvertently opened a gateway to somewhere outside the known universe, and when it teleported back, it brought something malevolent with it.

While it is never expressly stated what this dimension outside human understanding is, the strong implication is that it is something akin to a Hell dimension. Whatever it is, though, its pervasive evil has somehow possessed the ship, and that is what caused the Event Horizon crew to brutally murder each other, and is now threatening to do the same with the Lewis and Clark crew.

The Event Horizon Ship Itself Is the Villain, and That Is a Stroke of Genius

A creepy man with damage on his face is holding a gun in Event Horizon

Anderson’s decision to separate Event Horizon from Alien by making a possessed spaceship the villain rather than an extraterrestrial creature is the stroke of genius on which the entire film hinges. The idea that the ship teleported into a dimension so malignant that human minds can only comprehend it by exacting grotesque suffering and debasement on their fellow man, as well as their own bodies, is profoundly frightening.

In addition, it opens up all kinds of questions about religion, specifically the science vs. faith debate. These questions still fascinate fans (and theologians) to this day.

For example, if a group of astronauts — people of science, technology, and reason — are confronted with the idea that the Judeo-Christian concept of Hell may be harrowingly real, then does that take humanity back to the days of superstition? How does one reconcile the notion that a man-made technological innovation can punch a hole in reality so thoroughly that humans can wind up in a realm dedicated to punishing the souls of evil men and women?

On the other hand, even if the Hell dimension isn’t literally Hell, what does it say about man that the only way the characters can comprehend the incomprehensible is to think of it in ancient, Biblical terms?

Given the sheer array of bloody atrocities on display in Event Horizon — which, alarmingly, were dialled back in intensity and screentime from Anderson’s first cut — the movie could easily be dismissed as an excessively gory spacefaring Hellraiser tribute. Frustratingly, that’s exactly what critics did in ’97, resolutely failing to see the forest for the trees.

Today, though, it can’t be denied that the film boasts a core idea that still fascinates people nearly three decades after its release, and that is testament to the director’s belief in trying to do something different. He knew Event Horizon could never compete with Alien on a one-to-one level, because trying to top the greatest monster in movie history would have been a fool’s errand. Instead, he crafted a movie that had unexpectedly rich thematic depth to go along with its (admittedly) extreme visuals.

Indeed, Event Horizon is often a punishing experience, and it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. However, it is remarkably ambitious, especially for a director who was working on only his third feature film. Somehow, despite being relatively inexperienced as a storyteller, Anderson had the guts to make a film that refused to manifest its antagonist in one simple, marketable form. To him, it was much scarier if the characters were haunted by their tragic pasts, as well as the religiously terrifying implications of something they could never hope to fully understand.

Over time, that approach has come to be appreciated by the film’s legions of fans, which has to be hugely gratifying for Anderson. He took a big swing, and it didn’t pay off at the time, but eventually, he was proven correct to be proud of his grisly haunted house movie in space.