Bounding Into Halloween, Night 12: ‘Event Horizon’ & ‘Lifeforce’ Bring Terror From The Skies
Tonight’s pair of fear flicks takes us from rural cannibalism to the forever dark of outer space. It is call the final frontier, but it’s also the final destination for many unlucky souls this evening. So, get comfortable in your oversized “Command Chair,” and crack open a can of Perri-air. It’s time to put the horror into hyperdrive.
Event Horizon (1997)
The year is 2047, and a distress signal is received from the experimental starship, Event Horizon. It was built to send a crew of scientists to our nearest star, Proxima Centauri, and reduce 70,000 to 80,000 years off of the normal travel time by creating an artificial black hole that would get them there in just one day.
The ship disappeared on its maiden voyage the moment the crew initiated the gravity drive, and everything went silent on their end for seven whole years, or at least until US Aerospace Command pinged the long-lost ship’s signal near Neptune’s orbit.
This prompts them to send their rescue vessel, Lewis and Clark, to salvage what they can from the costly debacle. The ship’s designer, Dr. William Weir (played by the always competent Sam Neil), manages to finagle a seat onboard the retrieval mission.
He explains to everyone that they were once again duped by the media when the “official” story ran that the Event Horizon exploded when it tried departing out solar system, and the truth was swept under the rug.
The Lewis and Clark reaches the Event Horizon, and the inside looks like the slaughterhouse from last night’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre exploded everywhere. It doesn’t take long for the spacefaring rescuers that the ship didn’t just disappear.
It also traveled to a hellish dimension (that looks like a dream collaboration between Clive Barker and H.R. Giger), and it has come to claim a fresh crew of souls. With a limited time and oxygen, they try to survive the haunted ship, and evacuate before becoming permanent residents of an eternal Skinny Puppy show.
Constantly referred to as “Hellraiser in space”, this movie will go down as one of Horror’s greatest tragedies. Not only did Paramount rush the production, but they forced director, Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat, Alien vs Predator, Resident Evil series) to cut 34 minutes, and tone down the extreme violence.
When those ‘brilliant’ butchers changed their minds (for lack of a better word) for the DVD release, they discovered that all of the footage had been lost, and proving to the world that they’re the ones who need to be sent if the Event Horizon ever returns. Until then, watch the flawed classic on on Pluto TV, and here’s the trailer:
Lifeforce (1985)
From the director of the aforementioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Tobe Hooper, is the underrated adaptation of Colin Wilson’s 1976 novel, The Space Vampires, and it quite possibly has the greatest First Act in film history.
Lifeforce is about a crew of astronauts on the space shuttle Churchill who discover a race of vampiric lifeforms onboard a 150-mile-long, artichoke-shaped spacecraft that’s on cruise control at the tail of Haley’s Comet. They find three humanoid beings inside the mega ship that are hibernating in clear, coffin-like containers, and the geniuses decide to take them back to Earth, but then mission control loses contact with them.
A rescue ship is sent to investigate, and they find that the entire crew is dead while their three specimens quietly feign innocence within their suspended animation, and they’re taken to a facility in London for immediate dissection. The vampire chieftain (Mathilda May) wakes up before getting sliced.
She immediately starts feeding on the life energy of everyone who crosses her path, and without feeling the need to put on clothes before doing so, but very few have complained about this in the past four decades. After the other two awake, the non-resident nudists decide to fill up on souls before returning to their big artichoke in the cosmos.
“Bleak, strange, and wildly original” are good ways to describe the movie, but it’s also more than that. This apocalyptic spin on vampire lore enters the realm of Cosmic Horror in a way that makes David and his Lost Boys look like a small group of mosquitoes.
Lifeforce is an uneven cult classic that doesn’t have the happiest of endings, but that’s what true horror is all about, It’s currently staging an invasion on TUBI. The original trailer is below:
