It's just over a year since the first Bad Science Film Night and we've made it to the dizzy heights of ten proper BSFN events, including one triumphant field trip on the day of the great lab power cut (not counting Piranha 3D as a field trip due to its woeful attendance). That is only about three quarters of a film per month! Despite our infrequent showings Amazon has still learnt enough about my shopping habits since the start of BSFN to have sent me an email this week about the upcoming release of Mega Shark Of The Malibu - TERROR HAS NEW TEETH! I especially like the fact the Amazon's film title does not match the title on the cover, the more sensible sounding "Mega Shark in Malibu".
This was already in my DVD collection following a late night encounter with Event Horizon on ITV 4 (or another channel a long way down the freeview list). I had started watching it only to fall asleep and then suddenly wake up whenever there was a loud noise - this normally was accompanied by bad things happening on the television screen, like people with no eyes. This freaked me out enough to make me give up totally on the late night screening of Event Horizon and decide to watch through the film in a non-scary environment, with lights, a pause button and other people, so I ordered the DVD. I think my plan was to face my fears head on - it worked with Alien! Fortunately other BSFNight-ites had had similar scarring experiences with Event Horizon so there were more volunteers for this BSFN than our last foray into 18 certificate films (Piranha 3D *cough*).
"Their mission: find and salvage the state-of-the-art spacecraft. What they find is state-of-the-art terror."
Sam Neill has gone off into Neptune space (as in right by Neptune, that led to a bit of nerdiness in the room, discussing former planet Pluto's elliptical orbit) to look for a spaceship he designed, the "Event Horizon", which has reappeared after a decade of being LOST IN SPACE. Fortunately he has Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus) and lots of other recognisable faces to assist him in recovering the reappearing ship and any crew still left aboard. Unfortunately, there is no crew left on the "Event Horizon" which is now super creepy and menacing.
This film was made in 1997 and directed by the man who went on to helm to Resident Evil franchise (incidentally, what is going on with the inexplicable sledgehammer/axe zombie in Resident Evil 4? Why is it so big? Why does it have a MASSIVE sledgehammer?!?). A lot of the effects in Event Horizon looked a little dated, but I imagine they were cool in 1997 (not being 18 in 1997 limits my ability to comment on 1997's point of view about the graphics). I especially liked the way that they showed a lot of liquid in zero-g stuff, which I guess was state-of-the-art then and which quickly got referred to as the "Alex Mack" effect, I think that's what we were watching in 1997 instead of Event Horizon - Nickelodeon.
I'm not going to go into any more detail on what actually happens to the crew in the course of the film, just in case any BSFNight-ites who didn't catch it change their minds. Suffice to say all the bad stuff which made us want to watch it with other people is still there, and still horrific (especially if you have a thing about eyes, or mutilation in general, and seriously, who doesn't? I'd also like to point out that Intestines is one of the IMDB keywords). However, with other people, especially people in a mood to criticise any thing (e.g., "there's no sound in space, why can we hear that explosion?","would you really put the failsafe circuit a long way down narrow bright green tunnels made of circuit boards, not right by the service panel?", "The ship's log is in a CD ROM drive in 2047!?! Surely in 1997 people could imagine a future without CDs!?!" etc. etc.), Event Horizon is just not as scary as it is in the middle of the night, in the dark, on your own - and the BSFNight-ites were very glad about that.
Bad Science Film Night 10 - Event Horizon
- Favourite Tagline: Infinite Space - Infinite Terror
- Premise: Reckless use of particle physics leads to a ship which is kind of possessed by evil. Nasty stuff happens.
- Worst piece of science: The reckless particle physics bit. Also the impressive jet-packing through space was so impressive as to be a bit unlikely.
- Best quote: You break all the laws of physics and you seriously think there wouldn't be a price?
- Overall review: Freaky film, but OK with people. Not a typical Bad Science choice, but still many things to pull apart.
- Total number of BSFNight-ites: 5, not bad considering the number of point blank refusals.
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