Event Horizon is light years away from being perfect, but there’s no denying its distinct, evocative flavor. The film’s cult status stems from the way it uses CGI and practical effects to build a disturbing outer space atmosphere with gratuitous gore. In many ways, Event Horizon feels like a spiritual successor to Ridley Scott’s Alien. But instead of a single extraterrestrial threat, it introduces an entire gateway to a dimension that mirrors Hell. This brand of cosmic horror was ahead of its time, but its campy “haunted house in space” vibe is celebrated by sci-fi movie fans today.
That’s not to say everyone hated Event Horizon when it first came out. Even back then, some reviewers like Total Film pointed out its merits and justified its tag of “The Shining in space.” Apart from its obvious influences from Kubrick’s horror masterpiece and Alien, the space thriller also took cues from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, and in many ways feels like an unofficial prequel to Warhammer 40,000. This speaks volumes about the film’s cultural evolution into a bona fide sci-fi nerd classic…
Why that far? Just make it 30 years later.
Hell, make it a stealth sequel. A sci-fi film that people think is riffing on Alien until the subtle hints make you realise there’s no Company and no Xenomorphs, but instead their experimental tech goes haywire and Sam Fucking Neill comes through a portal, no eyes and bleeding everywhere.
Sure, you’d need an actually decent script and so on, but Hollywood pays those guys, I’m not doing all the work here.
Why set it in the 40th millennium? In the grim darkness of the far future? No reason. Just an intriguing setting that no-one is using at the moment.
Make it a Demolition Man homage by being set in some TNG or Culture like super neat future and have them deal with hell.