Blu-Ray dvd movie review of Event Horizon
December 31, 2008
If you have not watched Event Horizon in recent years, you might be surprised to learn that it was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Most of us are familiar with Paul Anderson's Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, and Alien versus Predator movies. And, most impression would be that those movies are fairly terrible at best. Only Resident Evil might be passable as semi decent movie. On the other hand, Even Horizon is a masterpiece. On the surface it looks to be a science fiction film but it's really a horror film set in space.
Set in mid 21st century, a crew sets out to find out what happened to a space ship named Even Horizon. This ship is built for faster than light travel. To achieve this, the ship carries a device capable of opening up a black hole that could connect two parts of the space. This ship goes missing after the first test flight. Seven years later, it appears near Neptune. This prompts a rescue mission via Lewis & Clark to find out if there are any survivors. Once they dock with Event Horizon, the crew experience strangeoccurrences. One by one they all experience shocking events and events from their past.
The acting is superb for a horror film. You usually don't get such talent as Lawrence Fishbourne or Same Neill for a horror film. Unless it's really good script. The supporting casts are as good as they can be. They need to look scared 1/2 of the time and shocked the other 1/2. All of them do those two parts exceptionally well.
Some have complained that it is hodge podge mix of genre masterpieces like Hellraiser and Alien. While there are certain elements that resemble those movies, Event Horizon stands on its own as a great horror movie. It does it with building suspense and creating a suffocating atmosphere throughout the movie. Being on space ship, you can almost feel the closeness and claustrophobia felt by the crew members. This is without a doubt a best film directed by Paul Anderson. It rightfully deserves a Blu-ray treatment as it is a classic horror film in my opinion.
What do you think about this movie? Please leave your thoughts below.
Click here to buy above blu ray movie at 20% off or more on Amazon.com!!
like Jurassic park without the dinosaurs
looks good, sounds good. The flashes of light in the first ship almost blinded me, I guess that’s a good thing, +1 pq
enjoyable, not genius
A recent review insprited me to take a second look at this movie. While its horror elements are more of a hat tipping to the film maker’s favorite horror movie moments – something I found annoying in the film’s original theatrical release – there is a lot to appreciate about the film once you accept this as a feature and not a flaw. The film has wonderful set, sound, lighting, effect, ship, and atmosphere design and terrific performances. The blu-ray transfer is sweet in the both video and audio categories. If you like horror you won’t find anything new here, and the promise implied in the first two acts isn’t delivered on in the third, but if you appreciate the craft of filmmaking, an interesting and enjoyable atmosphere, and good performances in a sci-fi setting, you may want to check this one out.
The Love Hate Sci-Fi/Horror film gets the HD Treatment
It seems that this is one of those movies that people either love or absolutely despise it. In my own group of friends its always been that way. Myself, I’m a fan of the movie, and have been since it came out in theaters and on VHS. I still own the 2-Disc special edition on DVD.
Story-
Essentially the story (where most people love or hate it) revolves around a crew of rescue techs that are sent on a code black assignment to a “lost” ship. The ship itself can create black holes that can transport the ship to the most distant regions of the Universe. An idea I find interesting because scientists are already theorizing how to create wormholes to different parts of space so for me it adds some realism to something that theoretically could happen. If you can’t buy into this idea at all, you’ll hate the remainder of the film. As the story progresses the horrors of the ship are revealed in many different fashions. This is the other part people seem to love or hate. Most deaths are quite grisly and can involve a bit of squirming on the viewers part. As well, some of the scares come from quiet moments followed by loud noises or a door suddenly opening, some people find this tacky. To me, the most frightening bit is what isn’t even shown. Where the ship went. I still wonder what it looks like!
Presentation-
The Blu-Ray presentation of this film is quite good considering the age of the source material. Early on, the edge enhancements can be seen easily in the motion of the crew moving around. This quickly goes away. The CGI effects have aged nicely and the high def treatment doesn’t really give them away. The black levels come through nicely. The color palette is dark. Ideally its supposed to be this way, considering the tone of the film, so don’t expect the colors to necessarily jump off the screen. The explosions in particular the sparks look leaps better than they did on SD.
Sound-
The sound track to the film stays constant throughout the picture. Loud when it should be and doesn’t drown out the actors voices during the more chaotic sequences. The screams and creepy voice of the man-thing speaking in Latin come through excellent.
Extras-
The extras are the same as from the 2-Disc Special Edition which include a comprehensive commentary with the director, a few making of specials and an un-filmed storyboard sequence that was cut from the final process. All of these are presented in SD. The only HD special feature is the theatrical trailer.
Love it or hate it. I love it. I wish more horror films would be like this.
Excellent Film and Excellent Blu-Ray
I bought the original DVD of this movie and I was very disappointed with the quality of that transfer. The Blu-Ray version however is amazing.
Having grown up playing Doom, it was great to see what basically is the same plot but in live action and not as cheesy as the Doom movie was. The special effects hold up very well and the direction of the film is great. A lot of tension and suspense.
If this movie interests you then you should try the video game Dead Space as well.
Great Movie
Great movie. They really enhanced this over the old VHS tape I had. I loved this movie back then, and I love it even more now. Colors were great and so were the details.
A Good Follow-up For Event Horizon Fans
This is a well-made sci-fi horror film standing out in a genre where so few of them make much of an impact beside great ones like Alien. The cast is strong, portraying well scripted characters. The horror is constant and genuinely creepy throughout. I can’t think of too many other sci-fi horror films that do a better job.
As far as the Special Edition is concerned, fans of the movie such as myself, will be pleased at the amount of attention spent on a movie over ten years old. Film documentary watchers will have plenty to watch and the deleted scenes are interesting to see without the special effects placed in. A good amount of content for film enthusiasts.
Finally on Blu-ray
If you’re looking at the Blu-ray reviews and deciding whether to purchase then you’ve likely already seen this flick so I will not waste your time with the stuff you already know.
I picked this up locally the day it came out. Now you bought your Blu-ray player for jaw dropping visuals one would assume. This movie will NOT give that to you. That being said, the movie is a lot sharper on Blu-ray, the colors are more distinguished, and you will notice more in the background. The truly impressive visuals are found in the warp drive – spike ball, gyroscope engine drive thing. There is a grainy look to the film as well.
If you’ve been a fan of this movie by all means purchase it. It’s a unique film, a piece of art in my opinion and well worth the money. HD snobs who can’t get beyond a PERFECT transfer will trash the movie as you have already read if you’ve made it this far down the line of reviews
BLU RAY Review
Love the movie but no wow effects on the video quality. Id say that the upconversion on the standard dvd would be of same detail that of this blu ray edition.
Event Horizon…a critical overview
Event Horizon has all the components to make a great film.
stunning cast, amazing special EFX, Directing is…..
well, its good from the start.
and thats where it ends.
you have a good watch until the last part of the movie.that part thats supposed to tie up all the loose ends…
and that is when you want your money back.
it just doesn’t have the close.
I will not disclose any spoilers, but the end has a look that seems to be as if, they had a new writer for the last 20-30 minutes of the movie,or maybe a new director,who took over,and didnt have a good idea what went on before.
it would be worth waiting until you can pickup this in the bargain bin.
at 19.99,its not there yet.
Event Horizon – Blu-ray Info
Version: U.S.A / Paramount / Region A, B, C
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
MPEG-4 AVC BD-50 / High Profile 4.1
Running time: 1:35:57
Movie size: 32,42 GB
Disc size: 40,01 GB
Total bit rate: 45.06 Mbps
Average video bit rate: 36.31 Mbps
Dolby TrueHD Audio English 3452 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3452 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 224 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 224 kbps / Dolby Surround
Subtitles: English / English SDH / French / Spanish / Portuguese
Number of chapters: 17
#Audio Commentary
#The Making of Event Horizon – 5 Documentaries (1h:43m:01s):
#Secrets – Deleted Scenes (26m:36s)
#The Unseen Event Horizon:
–The Un-Filmed Rescue Scene (2m:52s)
–Conceptual Art (3m:20s)
#The Point of No Return : The Filming of Event Horizon (8m:03s)
#Theatrical trailer (HD) and Video trailer
Event Horizon
To me, this is a great horror. I find it hard to enjoy horror movies today (today is Dec 12, 2008) because all they are are gore fests with half naked women. I love this movie because for one thing it does not derive its “fear-making” from BOO! haha you jumped, but rather it slowly gets you into the movie and begins to play with your mind. It is rather gorey, though there are worse (such as Lord of Illusions). This movie will not disappoint, unlike current horrors today that can only scare grandma’s and people with weak stomachs. Buy this and prepare to crap your pants!
Great film..great deal.
Just what I was promised from Amazon and could not find this even at Blockbuster or Wal Mart.
Event Horizon: Worth a second chance
When I first saw the movie in theaters, I was disappointed by it after being hyped up by various movie sites and magazines. I was waiting for this one with bated breath and when I finally saw it, I was simply let down. It didn’t really do it for me for various reasons, the main one being that the film felt somewhat mangled, as if they cut out all the gore that had been promised and excised what were probably important parts of the plot as well.
Recently, my girlfriend reintroduced it to me and upon watching it again, I came to realize that this flick is pretty decent and has a lot more going for it than I initially thought. It’s not the greatest horror movie ever and still has a few weak points that keep it from being so but it’s certainly entertaining and definitely disturbing, to say the least. Some of the imagery in this film kind of sticks in your head and the film has a great look to it, with pretty decent production design work.
This 2-disc dvd is under $5 and what you get for that little bit of cash is worth much more than that. There’s a really good documentary on the second disc that is over two hours long and covers a lot of ground on the film’s making, also going into the specifics of the film and why it was so badly received upon its release. I think that I appreciate the film even more now after watching it and it provides fans with probably the most definitive word on it, other than the director commentary on the film which is available here as well. There were rumors of an extended cut that reinstated plot points and even more blood and gore but it doesn’t look like its ever gonna happen for reasons that are explained in the documentary. A sad thing, as I know many people were excited about the prospects of such a cut, myself included.
The film is presented much more cleanly than in the featureless single disc DVD that was released a few years ago and also has an option for DTS Surround, so no complaints there. The DVD also contains a couple of deleted scenes and featurettes, all entertaining for the few minutes that they run.
Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill alone are worth watching the movie for and both turn in solid performances and while the film isn’t necessarily jump out of your seat scary, its more of the crawling feeling underneath your skin scary. Like I said before, this isn’t the greatest horror movie in the world but its more than passable and well worth a look if you enjoy horror movies* and never got to catch this one.
(*On a side note, anyone who likes this film should check out the videogame Dead Space as the film definitely influenced that game in a number of ways and believe it or not, is pretty scary in itself.)
Good Question
If you folded space to where point A (your current location) and point B (your desired destination) are within a few thousand miles instead of light years apart and, then, made the jump between space…well, what would you pass through? I’m no physicist but I found that question a very interesting part of the story behind this movie. This movie has a creepiness factor that makes it more of a horror instead of science fiction. This movie is unexpected. I first rented it about 10 years ago and instantly decided to purchase it when I noticed it on Amazon. I can’t give it five stars because I’m not entirely sold on the casting for the movie but it works.
Amazing!!!!!
I am writing this review from the UK. Hoping that we either get this released here in England or that the US version will be region free…
This is one of the best Sci FI Horror Movies of all time… It has such a mood to it, and is genuinely scary. I just hope they have remastered it to give it a great Blu-Ray transfer.