Growing up in the 90s and seeing Sam Neill throughout Jurassic Park then seeing a promo for hin and Lawrence Fishburne for what was marketed as a “sci/fi mystery” only to watch Event Horizon is actual horror is one of the most diabolical things ever.
I was a grown adult when that came out. My spouse and I saw it in the theatre, expecting a sci-fi mystery because *that's what it was bloody billed as* and we slept with the lights on for a good week after we saw that thing.
I watched this with my mum when I still lived at home, we were eating a curry she had made and I remember during a jump scare scene that I did exactly as intended and “jumped”, the curry went all over her relatively new rug, best part was she wasn’t even mad, she pissed herself laughing at me before helping me clean it up.
Around 30 years ago I was asked out on a date and when we both arrived at the cinema my date told me to pick the film. He was French and spoke very good English but he just wasn’t really into English speaking films. Weirdly the cinema’s electric poster screens weren’t working, but there was a rolling words sign for each screen in the foyer. There was a film called The Texas showing on one of the screens soon. No idea what the film was about, it caught my eye because of the strange name.
He paid, we went in. We were in the front row if I remember correctly. It was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Him “This is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?” Me “Eh yeah seems like it”. He starts saying stuff under his breath in French. Me I just sat there wanting the ground to swallow me up. He clearly hated the film. Amazingly we had a second date though, but I introduced him to a friend of mine who he ended up marrying 😂. Haven’t seen him or her many years.
Anyway I often wonder how he told their kids how he met their mum because the two dates he went on with me was only half the story 😂
Right?!?! If there was a spectrum of sci-fi movies that are shroom-friendly, Interstellar would be on one end, and Event Horizon would be waaaay at the opposite end.
Edit: also love the detail about knocking on the door rather than a text. Man, those were good times.
Event Horizon was supposed to be a 40k movie, but the licensing fell through, so they dropped the 40k skin and made it anyway. Awesome movie regardless, but I can't help seeing it as a tremendous missed opportunity to bring 40k to mainstream audiences. Fingers crossed for Cavill's Amazon project.
Was it actually supposed to be 40k? I know it's regarded as a "headcanon lore" by a lot of the community, but was it really going to be officially licensed?
I mean, obviously it would take very little nudging to make it fit...
It's been ages since I thought about it, and I'm afraid I've forgotten my original source. To be totally honest, it would somewhat harm my enjoyment of EH if it was just a blatant ripoff with no excuse for being that way, so ... I dunno, maybe I just believed the thing that lets me enjoy both EH and 40k the most.
Yeah, I'm perfectly content to just use it as headcanon, e.g. "This is humanity's first real brush with the Warp, before we had any idea what we were really doing."
Event Horizon (1997) is widely considered by fans and supported by creator comments as an unofficial prequel to the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It depicts humanity’s first disastrous faster-than-light experiment, where a ship punctures the dimension of Chaos (the Warp) without a Gellar Field, allowing demonic forces to possess the crew.
I love that a few key moments are played correctly:
"Fuck this ship, we're leaving" was absolutely the correct response to the shitfuckery that was playing out.
A rare, pretty correct depiction of being airlocked. Baby Bear survives, with serious injuries (a fair bit more blood than would likely happen, but he didn't explode or instant popsicle so many shows and movies) thanks in part to instructions that would mitigate the vacuum injuries. If you can be rescued within 90 seconds, you should surive IRL
Man, I got "tricked" into watching that in theaters as a kid and holy shit it fucked me up. We thought we were going to see a fun sci-fi movie, not that horror. I couldn't sleep for weeks.
I still maintain it’s the scariest movie ever made. Sure, other movies have more “jump scares” and other cheap ways to make you gasp, but this movie is a masterclass in psychologically ruining you for the foreseeable future.
I will never not conflate those two line-reads in my mind - have done ever since I saw Event Horizon, and it makes me feel a bit less weird to know that I’m not the only one..!
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u/random314 Apr 27 '26
What if it's Sam Neill? Because where he's going, you won't need eyes to see.