Event Horizon takes place in 2047, and it's been seven years since a deep space ship designed to explore the outer edges of our solar system vanished without a trace. This ship, the Event Horizon, is considered the worst space disaster in human history, but now Dr. Weir (Sam Neill), the designer of the ship has gotten word that it has reappeared in the exact same location that they lost contact with it. Now, it's up to the crew of the rescue vessel, The Lewis and Clark led by Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne of Matrix fame) must fly out to the location near Neptune, rescue the crew and salvage the ship.
What the crew don't realize is that the Event Horizon wasn't simply an exploration vessel, but one designed to test out a possible faster-than light-transportation method that involves using the powers and energies of an artificially-created black hole to actually fold space and time to allow instant travel to anywhere in the Universe. When the crew arrives, they find it to be a ghost ship, in more that one sense of the word. Not only is the Event Horizon's crew dead, but the ship itself seems to be haunted.
They find records of the destruction that the previous crew wrought upon themselves and the ship, as well as how exposure to wherever the ship has gone led them to go crazy. Top that off with the hallucinations that members of the rescue crew are experiencing and things look bad. These images are all of their worst fears. For Miller, it is a former crewmate that he had to leave on a ship as it was destroyed. For Lt. Starck (Joely Richardson from Nip/Tuck), it is images of her son that she left on Earth. For Weir, it's his dead wife who apparently killed herself years ago.
Special features are quite plentiful on this disc, but most of them seem to be in standard definition and came straight off the DVD, so nothing new is really offered here. There are a lot of making-of featurettes involving the CG, prosthetics and make-up work, as well as a couple of making-of's dealing with the filmography and directing of the movie.
The movie takes on a definite "haunted house in space" feel and is reminiscent of Alien (a monster movie in space). And while it definitely didn't receive the acclaim that Alien did, it has its fans (typically those who like unusual sci-fi/horror combinations).
Existing fans of the movie, those of us that are out there, would probably revel in the chance to see this film on the new high definition media. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, the computer generated effects don't translate nearly as well. The items floating around the Event Horizon when the crew first arrives are obviously fake, but seeing as the movie actually uses a lot of practical effects, like the frozen cadaver that crashes to the ground when they restore gravity, a lot of the effects do come through better than before.
With nothing new as far as special features, the only thing that makes this purchase better than the DVD version is the actual video and audio increase quality. If you are trying to build up your Blu-ray library and you like the movie (and those enhancements are enough for you), then pick up this release. Otherwise, skip it.
