6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.3 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
When a rescue crew investigates a spaceship that disappeared into a black hole and has now returned, things start to take an increasingly horrific turn.
Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. JonesHorror | 100% |
Thriller | 88% |
Sci-Fi | 55% |
Supernatural | 31% |
Mystery | 26% |
Surreal | 16% |
Psychological thriller | 15% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
5.1: 2803 kbps; 2.0: 1757 kbps
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
After scoring a somewhat unexpected hit with his second feature, a live-action version of the video game Mortal Kombat (1995), British director Paul W.S. Anderson was hired by Paramount to helm Event Horizon, which was one of the studio's biggest summer movies of 1997. (An industry source lists the film's budget at $70 million.) Philip Eisner penned an original screenplay that made an immediate impression on Anderson. “I thought it was a hugely original work and something I hadn't seen done for a long time," The Atlanta Voice quoted the British auteur in an article. "It is a psychological horror film that reminded me of some of my favorite movies like The Exorcist and The Shining, but in a totally unique location: outer space." After principal photography and post-production wrapped, Anderson screened the picture for Paramount executives, who deemed it too gory and gruesome. One exec wanted Anderson to tone it down so it could make a PG-13 rating. Paramount tested the movie three times. The pre-release screenings elicited mixed reactions and Anderson excised some scenes and put in a different ending. "[W]e were just trying to, kind of, get the right balance without tipping the movie also into an NC-17," Anderson observed while commenting on one of the omitted scenes on this disc. In the ending that's purportedly in the original cut, Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) confronts an immolated comrade he was unable to save while evacuating his crew on a previous space mission. Remnants of that scene survive in a recycled deleted scene but the burning victim's identity was changed to a different character. When Event Horizon was done and Paramount put out a 95-minute theatrical cut, the studio didn't assemble a super-aggressive marketing campaign. The movie suffered as it took in a domestic gross of just $26.67 million. At the 2012 Comic-Con, Anderson stated that producer Lloyd Levin had uncovered a 130-minute VHS workprint of Event Horizon, which was supposedly the same version screened at the first test screening. Levin isn't interviewed on any of the new extras produced for this Shout! Factory Collector's Edition but set decorator Crispian Sallis mentions in his interview that he believes Anderson's Director's Cut still exists.
The crew of the U.S.A.C. Lewis & Clark
Shout! Factory's release of Event Horizon comes with a slipcover and a reprint of the original poster art on the inside. Shout! uses the MPEG-4 AVC encode on a BD-50, which uses 42.16 GB of the disc. The transfer stems from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative. The movie appears in its original exhibition ratio of 2.35:1. In one of his two articles on Event Horizon for American Cinematographer, Ron Magid documents that cinematographer Adrian Biddle (BSC) photographed the entire film on Eastman Kodak's 500 ASA 5279 Vision stock. "The 79 was perfect for Event Horizon, because I get better blacks with it than I do with 5245 or 96," Magid quoted the DP as saying. "The 79 can be very forgiving in the dark. And in anamorphic, I'd rather go for a bit more f-stop to bring the quality up and get finer grain." Magid stated that he went for sepia brown, flashes of red, and a quasi-green that emitted from uncorrected fluorescents. Magid and his camera crew frequently shot with blue- and green-screen backdrops. In this pre-CGI picture, there were 250-plus effects shots!
The Shout! transfer nicely accents the hues that Magid sought. As you'll notice in these screen captures, colors are much richer and clearer than they appear on Paramount's 2008 transfer. The Shout! is also smoother in motion. The Paramount transfer (and Warner's reissue of it) has some black dirt and tiny white specks that Shout! has expunged. The older transfer is also softer. I do like the thick texture and grain on the Paramount more so than on the Shout!, which isn't as apparent. It should be noted that Paramount likely reused the same master from its 2006 DVD and it contains some video noise. It also isn't as vivid or film-like as the Shout!. My video score for the Shout! is 4.25/5.00. Shout! encodes the feature at a mean video bitrate of 29996 kbps while the Paramount/Warner discs average 36313 kbps.
Screenshots 1-15, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 = Shout! Factory 2021 Collector's Edition BD-50
Screenshots 17, 19, 21, 23, 25 = Paramount 2008 Standard BD-50
Shout! provides a dozen scene selections for the film. The Paramount/Warner BDs have seventeen.
Shout! supplies a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (2803 kbps, 24-bit) and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo downsampled mix (1757 kbps, 24-bit). By comparison, the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround on the Paramount/Warner discs average 4092 kbps (24-bit). Spoken words are crisp although I had to turn up the volume to fully hear one of pilot Smith's murmurings. The opening credits deliver a thunderous rumble with bass throttling my home theater room. The flying objects in the air receive good f/x on the SL. The surround channels are also active for the jump scares and explosions.
Event Horizon is a film that Anderson intended to be loud. This is confirmed by critics who saw the picture at either press screenings or with a regular audience. For example, The Associated Press' Bob Thomas noted that "periodically, [Anderson] offers a huge sound effect, just to make sure he has your attention. The film has a higher decibel count than a heavy metal concert." Longtime Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan described the Dolby Digital 5.1 as "over-amplified sound." Owen McNally of the Hartford Courant was put off by the Kaman/Oribital score: "The dreadful soundtrack blares triumphantly in corny fortissimo odes to chaos and mediocre special effects."
Optional English SDH are available for the main feature only.
Shout! has carried over all bonus materials contained on Paramount's two-disc Special Collector's Edition SD release. Those were also included on Paramount's 2008 BD as well as the Warner/Paramount reissue editions. All have subtitles (English, English HoH, French, Portuguese, and Spanish) on the extras. Shout! has added eleven new interviews that were conducted during the Covid pandemic. A majority were recorded through a mediated screen, although a few appeared to be filmed in person (likely in the UK).
Event Horizon has held up and even improved for me upon repeated viewings. Shout! Factory's 4K restoration is very good, although grain lovers may be partial to the granularity on Paramount's 2008 transfer. I also covet the copious set of subtitles that Paramount/Warner have for their extras. I would have liked Shout! to maximize the bitrates on the image and two lossless sound tracks and place all the supplements on a second disc. While the authoring and compression leave something to be desired on the video, I thought the DTS-HD MA 5.1 delivered a propulsive aural experience that exceeded the Dolby TrueHD mix on the Paramount. Shout! licensed all the extras on the prior DVDs and BDs and recorded eleven recent interviews that, while relatively brief, add some additional material and context. The top interviews are with Anderson and Sallis. I missed seeing a compiled set of still galleries, which have become a specialty of this label. This may not be the definitive package of Event Horizon since the 130-minute cut stored on videocassette (for the first preview screening) is ostensibly in producer Lloyd Levin's possession. Still, this Colllector's Edition earns a STRONG RECOMMENDATION.
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