Event Horizon (1997)

Source: IMDB. Spoilers ahoy!

Let’s talk about Hell. I grew up Lutheran, and attended Sunday School every weekend for years. Lutherans don’t talk much about Hell. Frankly, I don’t recall what we did talk about. I do recall that the church didn’t have air conditioning, so in the summer it got very hot.

Luckily, comic books filled the gaps in my religious education. I learned about Hell in X-Men Annual #4, when Nightcrawler is banished to the Eternal Flames by a mysterious entity, and his fellow X-men must descend into the Pits to save him. Turns out the culprit was his girlfriend’s mom.

You laugh. Well, The X-Hell closely mirrors Dante’s Inferno, so it was educational! Dante himself was not a priest and did not actually descend into Hell to pen his version of a travel guide. I am sure he used many scholarly and religious sources when writing Inferno. It doesn’t matter. The point is, he made it up.

Reading comic books isn’t so different from how peasants in the Middle Ages learned about Hell. Recently, on my trip to Italy, I visited Orvieto. The cathedral has an enormous Signorelli fresco called The Damned Cast Into Hell, wherein green demons toss sinners into the eternal flames.

I can just imagine going to church in the Middle Ages. I would have been a peasant, no question. There wouldn’t have been any air conditioning, either. I’d gaze, slack jawed, at the fresco, at the bright, lurid colors. And the message would be clear.

You do not want to go there.

*

In Event Horizon, Dr. Weir (Sam Neill) has built a gravity drive that allows for faster-than-light travel. When informed that such a thing isn’t possible, the good doctor uses a magazine to show how his machine works. You fold the two sides in half, so that the points meet, which is faster than taking a straight line.

Simple, right? Sure, except it doesn’t explain how the gravity drive works. When pressed on that topic, Dr. Weir says (paraphrasing) ‘well, it’s complicated.’ He’s wrong. It is not complicated. It’s impossible.

In fact, I would say that Dr. Weir’s gravity drive bears more than a passing resemblance to a Lament Configuration, i.e. the puzzle boxes in Hellraiser that are gateways to other dimensions. I have no idea if this is intentional or not, but it really works.

The Event Horizon is an experimental ship that vanishes and reappears off Neptune seven years later. Dr. Weir, along with a paramilitary rescue crew led by Miller (Laurence Fishburne), are sent to investigate. They find a lot more than they bargain for.

In Event Horizon, Hell means regret. Dr. Weir regrets ignoring his lovely wife, who kills herself. Miller, the head of the rescue operation, regrets leaving one of his men behind to die. His crew have their own regrets. Do I have regrets, you ask? I try not to dwell on the past, but yes I do.

Dr. Weir is an awkward fit. The others resent him, because they were on leave. It doesn’t help that the good doctor has what could be construed as a condescending attitude. Don’t tell someone who is hyperventilating, you must have imagined that, because they will try to punch you in the face.

What the hell happened to the Event Horizon anyway? Instead of going to the nearest star cluster, the gravity drive took the last crew on a guided tour of Hell, and now the ship is semi-sentient.

The gravity drive activates randomly. The oxygen is bad. Horrific hallucinations, all involving the crew members’ regrets. One of the rescue team being transported to the other place, and returning with something embedded in him.

After discarding its initial host, the entity takes root in Dr. Weir, which makes sense. Make the guy who opened the door the literal door. This transformation is made more effective by the fact that Dr. Weir isn’t evil, unless you call being an awkward conversationalist evil.

Do I believe in Hell? Do I think there’s a tunnel that leads to the center of the Earth full of capering devils and demons, all of whom want to poke me in the ass with their trusty pitchforks? No.

There’s too much vivid color and activity. Too much warmth. I myself believe that Hell is absence. Hell is cold. Hell is empty. Most of our physical universe is cold and empty.

You figure it out.