Event Horizon at 25: Paul W.S. Anderson Recalls Paramount Fearing His Horror Film Slandered ‘Star Trek’
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/event-horizon-explained-paul-ws-anderson-anniversary-1235336634/share
When Paramount got its first look at a cut of “Event Horizon” in 1997, some studio executives thought that director Paul W.S. Anderson had made a film so disturbing that it slandered outer space itself.
“Someone actually said to me, ‘We’re the studio that makes Star Trek!’” Anderson recalled with a grin on his face. “They weren’t only horrified by my movie; they felt I was besmirching ‘Star Trek’ somehow, because I was also in space and doing all this terrible stuff.”
Peppered with images of unspooled astronaut guts and suicidal blood orgies, it’s safe to say that “Event Horizon” had boldly gone where no “Star Trek” entry had gone before. The film follows a crew venturing to the outer reaches of the solar system to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a space ship and its even more perplexing reappearance seven years later. What begins as a cautious exploration of metallic caverns builds to a frenzy of hallucinatory gore after the bloody fate of the ship’s crew is uncovered. Turns out (spoiler alert) they opened a space portal… to hell.