Sci-fi reaches a new horizon
An event horizon is the boundary of a black hole; the point of no return. And into a galaxy extremely crowded with Hollywood starships comes a summer shocker titled Event Horizon, starring Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill.
A tense, Alien-like drama set in 2047, this movie is aimed at the seemingly bottomless pit of sci-fi fans - those not sated by four years of The X-Files, Jodie Foster's Contact, serial Star Trek escapades and devotees who can't wait for November's Aliens 4: The Resurrection or even X Files: The Movie, which is currently shooting in Los Angeles.
What is this fascination with the future, which just this year has also brought us The Fifth Element, three re-released Star Wars movies and the sci-fi spoof Mars Attacks ? There is no doubt that the genre is a lucrative seam for Hollywood producers, but what can Event Horizon possibly have to say that has not already been computer-generated past belief? Event Horizon, say the director and stars of the film, is quite simply different.
'It has no villain,' says Laurence Fishburne. 'There is no bad guy, no boogeyman. It's a neat marriage between science fiction, horror and psychological drama. And it looks like no other movie I've ever seen, if that's not enough!' Adds British director Paul Anderson, who last helmed Mortal Kombat: 'It really plays with the narrative. When you start watching Event Horizon, you think you know what you're going to get - I did, when I first read the screenplay.
'I thought I'd seen these people before, knew what they were going to do. And as you get through it, things go horribly wrong, and you don't know who's going to live, who's going to die. It's simply terrifying.' A mid-budget film, Event Horizon took US$9.5 million (HK$73.47 million) in its opening weekend in the US, proving the sci-fi audience really is a bottomless pit.
But, says Anderson: 'Although I'm a complete sci-fi nut and have been since I was seven years old, I'm also a big fan of scary movies. Event Horizon is a combination of both these things.' So what's all the fuss about? Event Horizon comes from a screenplay by Paul Eisner, which dispatches a search-and-rescue mission to the dark depths of our solar system to find the spaceship called the Event Horizon - a landmark prototype spaceship missing for the last seven years.