Missing for seven years, a starship suddenly reappears in orbit prompting a rescue crew and the spacecraft’s designer to investigate only to find a blackhole aboard that leads to a hellish dimension.

If you spent the amount of time I did channel surfing in the 2000s, you’d remember EVENT HORIZON (1997) seemed to always be on cable TV, which meant I was watching for a bit but later scrambling for the remote every time Sam Neil gouged his eyes out. Spoiler alert? Giving it a proper re-watch today had me less frightened and more amused by what it lacks as a thriller, but it is unquestionably memorable, striving for a “Hellraiser in Space” concept. 

I’m obsessed with a movie that far overshoots future tech advances – did they really think we’d be traveling to Jupiter in cryogenic sleep in 50 years? This flick bombed in the box office, but if you recall, it’s rivals in ’97 were sci-fi masterpieces like CONTACT and THE FIFTH ELEMENT and FLUBBER. Tough competition.

In 2047, the crew aboard rescue vessel Lewis and Clark are tasked to respond to a distress signal of Event Horizon, a starship that suddenly disappeared seven years prior. The signal contains the agonizing screams of Horizon’s crew and a latin exclamation, “liberate me. Joining the crew is the missing ship’s designer, Dr. Weir, who explains he’s built an experimental gravity drive that creates an artificial black hole. Once on board, signs of a massacre are evident. The crew engage the gravity drive, causing chilling hallucinations in which their deepest fears and trauma begin manifesting around the seemingly sentient spacecraft.

A good throwback put on for old time’s sake, though it’s not exactly out of this world.