Event Horizon (1997) — "Hell is only a word."

We are in way, we are in way. A haunted ship. I'm getting some really strange readings in here. A missing crew. This place is a tomb.

DJ, where are you? And infinite evil. This ship has been beyond the boundaries of our universe. Who knows what it's brought back with it? Vacate!

I want off this ship. I can't leave. She won't let you. Event Horizon. Rated R.

Okay. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the CultureCast. I am your host, Chris Stashew, and I am joined by my good friend all the way from FlickAttack.com, where he's been writing about films since before I was born. No, that's not the case. He's been writing about films since a while.

Your friend and mine, Rod Lott. Hey there, baby bear. Fucking God. Yikes. That's from the movie.

What? From the movie. Rod, why would you share what you call me in private on this episode of The Culture Cast? How could you? On this episode of The Culture Cast, if you don't know why Rod is calling me Baby Bear, well, you're going to find out because on this episode, we're talking about a film that I'm a huge fan of.

And I know Rod is a huge fan of as well, because when I mentioned him, I was thinking about talking about it. He was like, yeah, I would love to do that. We're going to be talking about... Paul W.S. Anderson's 1997 film Event Horizon.

So the film is, like I mentioned, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson on a script by Philip Eisner, though there is an uncredited rewrite by Andrew Kevin Walker. Yes, Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote Seven. It is produced by Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, and Jeremy Bolt. And it stars everybody's favorite stoic black actor, Lawrence Fishburne, or as I like to call him, Larry F.

Also Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Jolie Richardson, Richard T. Jones, Justin Jack Noseworthy, the aforementioned baby bear, Jason Isaacs, Draco Malfoy's dad, and Sean Pertwee. The film is a haunted house in space as it was pitched originally, but it is a... A film about a spaceship that is created to travel through, that creates a black hole to travel through space and time because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, as we've been shown in multiple films about wormholes. They did the thing in this movie.

They folded the paper in half and stuck a pen through it, which they have done so many times. I think they even did it in Stranger Things, even, which is beyond fucking hilarious. But yeah, it's a film about a spaceship that creates a wormhole that it uses to travel through space and time. That spaceship was created by Sam Neill. And in the process of creating the spaceship, he inadvertently creates a ship that can travel to hell and back.

No pun intended, literally going to hell. Or, as the comic books recontextualize it, the chaos realm. We're going to be talking about the film and spoiling it. It's from 1997. Do yourself a favor and go see it.

It's been like, you know, 20 plus years, so I don't know what you're waiting for at this point. Don't keep waiting for that unreleased footage to come out because that Transylvanian salt mine where those versions of the film have been sitting forever are gone now. So Rod, I am so very curious once, uh, once we kind of start talking about the film and spoiling it, I'm sure we'll hear more about your, uh, long-term thoughts in the film, but quick thoughts on the film and first time you saw it, any, uh, things that stick out to you other than you're a huge fan of Sam Neill as am I. So I saw this opening weekend, um, at an AMC here in Oklahoma city. And I, I was the only person in the theater. on a Saturday afternoon.

So that did not, I knew that wouldn't bode well for its box office. Sure enough, it was a flop, but it's come to, you know, it has quite a cult now. It's one of those films that got rediscovered or actually discovered with that been a DVD and Blu-rays and streaming. So it, it accrues more fans as the years goes, as the years go on. But I've always liked, really liked it.

Even though the first time I saw it, I didn't quite a hundred percent follow what was going on. Um, this watch I think was my fourth and it's the first with that I turned on subtitles and I learned a lot more. So I like it a lot, um, still. And I feel, I feel fortunate to, um, have caught some things that I have not caught before. Plus, uh, learned that there's a lot of, whooshing, groaning, and mechanical clinking, according to those subtitles.

Not a lot of tentacles squelching in this. That was always my favorite one from Stranger Things season four was tentacles squelching. which I always find to be a very funny subtitle. It's interesting. You know, I think that this film is a film that, you know, whenever we talk about, and we talked about this before, you and I have, and I've talked about this so many times with other podcasters who talk about films, at least specifically, there's this phrase that we tend to use, which is, it'll find its audience eventually, or it found its audience eventually. And Event Horizon is, is one of those films.

It was not, it was not, not that it wasn't well-regarded when it came out, but let's just talk about the director for a second. Paul W.S. Anderson, not someone who people are like, Hey man, the next Paul W.S. Anderson film's coming out. We're going to create a popcorn bucket for it.

And we're going to go all line up like we did for Christopher Nolan's Odyssey and pretend like it's, you know, the next greatest film ever made for us. Like no, no one is doing that for Paul W.S. Anderson. I think Paul W.S. Anderson for the most part is kind of seen as a, I don't know, maybe a little bit less hacky Uwe Boll.

I don't know what the perception is for Paul W.S. Anderson for the mainstream, other than people knowing that he's the guy who directed the Resident Evil movies and the original Mortal Kombat. But the films that he makes are not... critically well received. And what's funny is I almost feel like this film is like the standout in that regard, because it's actually a good film that deserves a lot more credit than it was given at the time. And like you've already alluded to, it's it's been kind of, you know, the quality of the film has been relitigated in, in the, in, you know, the last, you know, 20 plus years since it came out.

And I don't think we're saying anything like, Oh, we found a undiscovered gem of the, of, you know, sci-fi. Like no, no one is saying that because, you know, like we already alluded to, there's a comic book now. I think this is a movie that, you know, Sam Neill had talked about on the record and talked about the film needing more time. Like the people involved in the movie even understood that the film was kind of taken apart by the studio, which is unfair. You know, it seems to be a little bit of a, one of those rush jobs as it were, the film was approved 10 weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well that too. Yeah.

The Titanic of it all. And you know, that's, that's the, that's, that's the crazy thing is like, yeah, this movie ends up being released when it was because of Titanic, uh, and then, and Paramount needing to fill the gap for Titanic. But A film like this being approved 10 weeks before it's being filmed is insanity. And given that this is a practical effects and like CGI kind of, I don't know. I would say like there's a lot.

It's not like overdone, but in terms of like practical effects, there's a lot of practical effects. I mean, again, they're like on a spaceship the entire film. So it's one giant set. I mean, they never really are outside at any point. Other than, you know, some of the characters walking around.

Yeah, they're walking around in spacesuits, Richard T. Jones specifically. But there is not a lot of, like, exterior, like, shots on a planet or anything. It's all spaceship bound. So it's wild to me that they're like, 10 weeks and we're going to be shooting this spaceship movie?

Like, all right, whatever. Good gusto on them. But this is a film that I saw... I want to say I saw it sometime either right when I graduated high school or early college, because I remember watching this a couple of times in college, just really late at night and really enjoying it. And I enjoy it now.

I mean, it's a It is, I think, a flawed movie. I think there are issues with it, and I'm sure we'll talk about them. But for me, it is a film that there's only one or two other films that are like it, and I think it definitely wears its influences on its sleeves. There is one specific influence that we will talk about, and I think it's the obvious one, that being Hellraiser, because a lot of what A lot of the themes of the movie are kind of Hellraiser adjacent, or at least the ideas presented in Hellraiser adjacent. But there is so much of this film that is unique to itself and comes up with these kind of fun and interesting ideas that are not.

Anything to do with Hellraiser. And I would like to remind everyone, Hellraiser did go to space at one point. So we do get to see Hellraiser in space. So this is not Hellraiser in space. There's more going on than that.

But I do think that this is a film that, you know, like you already mentioned, and I will reinforce it, like it found its audience eventually. But it didn't have to look that hard. This is not like some sort of like... weird indie film that took 15 years for people to appreciate. Like this is, this is a relatively large budget, you know, for the time, because again, that, that factors into why this film is perceived as quote, quote, a failure, unquote. But it is a haunted house movie in space.

I don't know what anyone else would need to get from that, and I don't think that the film needs to give me any more than that. It does. It gives me more than that, I think, in a lot of ways. Like you said, there's a lot to kind of think about, and it opens some interesting questions, and it does some interesting things. But to say that this movie didn't find its audience immediately, like, this movie's made for the Friday night crowd, right? which is just insanity to me.

Like in 1997, people didn't go see this movie and I can't, understand why, I guess. Again, it's not a bad movie. It's a good movie. It's a flawed movie. But I think nine times out of 10, it's working rather well.

This is not like, oh, most of the time it's a bad movie. But there's those fun moments that I really like. No, this, I think, is a good movie throughout that does some interesting novel things that are not just retreading old sci-fi tropes. And I think that it also helps, obviously, that It's a horror movie set in space. And it's a horror movie set in space without monsters or aliens, which is another kind of weird thing in and of itself.

So I don't know. I really like this movie. It is a very different and unique movie. And what's funny is it's not like you're like, oh, I'm going to go watch this other movie that's like Event Horizon. It's like, no, if you want to watch Event Horizon, you just it's event horizon or nothing else.

I mean, there's not another, there's not really another option as it were like, it's, you know, you want to watch Hellraiser, you can watch Hellraiser one or two or three. And beyond that, I mean, your mileage is going to vary, but with event horizons, like you watch event horizon and that's it. There's this and nothing else. So I don't know. It's, it's just, it's weird to me that this movie didn't succeed out of the gate, but I'm glad that it has succeeded subsequently because it, I don't know.

It's just one of those films that I'm always just like, why isn't somebody done something else with this? And then the comic book came out. But I'm talking about like, why isn't someone done another film? Not like I don't give a shit about any of the characters in this movie, frankly, but like the idea of this demonic ship. I just don't know why this hasn't been something that's been done again.

I can assume I know why based on just the price of. doing things like this now in the amount of time and effort. But this is one of those films where I'm just like, why was this not mined further by somebody else? Like we get all these sequels to things that are so successful. And then it's like, oh my God, like I made a sequel to Blade Runner. It wasn't immensely successful.

Well, Blade Runner wasn't successful when it came out. So you made a sequel to a movie that wasn't successful when it came out. And then the sequel wasn't successful and you were surprised. Like, I guess I'm glad they haven't done anything with this because it would probably come out. Nobody would go see it.

And then they would be like, why are you doing this? But at least we would have gotten something else, another film to watch. But this is one of those films that I always feel like is on like a short list of things that I would like to see more of in that world or universe. Just maybe not specifically, you know, Oh, Lawrence Fishburne comes back. Like none of that.

Like, I don't mean any of that nonsense. So. Totally. I know that they've, have tried to get, I believe, like a limited series going. Which would make sense.

Paramount has, you know, Paramount Plus. And I think that would be cool. But I think you touched upon several of the reasons why it didn't succeed without outright saying it. One was that it's that it is horror or really a horror sci-fi mix that kind of varies between the two. depending upon what scene you're watching. But this was not a time where horror movies were critically acclaimed.

I think Scream had just come out, I believe the Christmas right before this, and that was sort of the new thing. It was the self-referential meta tongue-in-cheek horror. That was kind of the Kevin Williamson era. That was what was in vogue, and this sort of thing was not. And secondly, Paul W.S.

Anderson, never to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson. He had only done Shopping, which was a little UK film that Roger Corman picked up for the States. And it's really not memorable, but you can see that it has a fairly gifted technician behind the camera. And he did Mortal Kombat, which... Say what you will, but at the time, it was...

It's still up there. It's still up there for the better video game movies, I think. Okay, you're with me then. Oh yeah, 100%. I always liked it a lot.

And that got me looking forward to Event Horizon. In fact, that's probably the main reason I went to see this, was because it was from the Mortal Kombat guy. And I'll go on record as saying, I'm actually... Pretty pro Paul W.S. Anderson.

Despite his reputation, it is more of like a... I think he gets the... Not like the Uwe Boll... Uh, but it's more of like a studio hack sort of thing. Like the guy who adapts video games.

I don't, I don't know what the, I know what my perception of him is, which is like, it seemed like he made a lot of resident evil movies for a really long time and nothing else. And the resident evil movies, varying degrees of successful. They're nowhere near as successful as a Zach Kreger one that just came out, but okay. Like they, they were also, Like you already alluded to, they were video game movies being made in a time and place when people didn't take video games seriously. I think they take video games seriously now, which helps.

But yeah, like and I think similarly here, like this kind of film, you know, it's not trying to be a serious movie, but it is a kind of film made in the 80s. And the late 90s are not the time to be making a film like this, especially post Kevin Williamson. Because, yeah, Kevin Williams, I mean, look, say what you will about Scream. I love Scream, but Scream also did have a effect on the industry where there were a lot of posers and copiers and, you know. urban legend and i know what you did last summer and and all of those films are kind of in the wake of scream and like you said yeah and it then pushes the audience expectation to be well we don't want the haunted house we don't want the haunting in space anymore which is i mean what this is this is a haunted house movie in space they can't leave not because the doors of the haunted house are locked but because if they go outside they die because it's space.

That's true although i'm still curious how they got they i don't know if you notice this they have a coke someone has a can of coke how did you get a can of Coke up into space? They have cigarettes to. Load on airplanes, but they have closed cans of Coke, but that's, uh, I guess the streaming series would get into, um, the whole mythology. Explaining all of the bullshit that is completely and utterly unimportant. It's, it's very, I mean, the thing that this movie reminds me of, and I know that people want to compare it to hell raiser, but I think for me, the thing that this is like so clearly reminiscent of is alien, um, I mean, again, you know, it's like, that's the obvious, you know, kind of. comparative in terms of like, it's a horror movie and it's in space and the crew is getting picked off one by one, but there's no monster here.

And I honestly, I think for me, one of the failures of this movie for the Friday night audience is the lack of a monster. But I think for me, that's the success of the movie is that it's the monster in the walls, not the monster chasing you around. And that's so much more interesting because there's so many more directions you can go with it than just, well, there's the guy chasing after you. There you go. Yeah it's the monster within us uh not to sound pretentious but it's true i just think his movies are generally just fun this one is brainier than most of them but i even though i haven't seen anything he's done in the last well since covid um i generally like his movies this one uh I think his problem overall is writing.

He doesn't need to be writing movies, and he didn't write this one, which may be why it has such a good reputation. Because I do think he has style. He's more than competent director. And I know the director's not 100% responsible for the sets, but man, the sets on this movie are so cool. And it all contributes to an overall... mood and ambience and vibe.

You have to know how to shoot a spaceship interior. Like that's not for nothing. Like that's not easy. Like none of, none of this filmmaking in this film is easy, which I think to your point, yeah, say what you will about Paul W.S. Anderson's other things, but his ability to make this movie and this movie actually live within the space of films that are much more well-regarded, like an alien, I think are impressive.

And again, to create a world that feels unique and lived in, that doesn't feel like something I've seen a million times before, also a genuine credit to Anderson and to the set direction and the production design. And you also mentioned, I think, if Paul Anderson is not writing his own stuff, I think it's fine. Once he kind of starts getting involved in the writing process, things just kind of go seemingly awry. Mm hmm. And, you know, again, he was kind of, you know, if he's a gamer, which I'm assuming he must be a fan of gaming in some capacity because he's made so much video game content as a director.

And making more, apparently. Yeah, no kidding. I think for me, the thing with Paul W. Sanderson is His stuff that is not video game specific, it's fine, but it's better than the video game stuff, I think, for the most part. Like, I think for me, this is the best thing he's done, period.

Period, right? Okay, you agree. And I would say in terms of like the second best thing he's done, if it's not a video game thing, it might be Alien vs. Predator. Because that movie's bad, but it's not bad because of him directing it.

It's bad because it's fucking PG-13. Yeah. No, I like that movie. Again, I just generally like his movies. Yeah, I don't dislike Alien vs.

Predator. It's much better than the other one that came out, the sequel, that you can barely even see when you watch it because it's so dark the entire time. Yeah. Look, I'm a broken record. I just generally like his movies.

And I knew I was going to like this one from the start because anytime a film you like goes from the studio logo and like, you know, makes it part of the movie. And this one is just a paramount mountain and it goes up into space. And I was like, yes, I am with this. And then they put on the soundtrack. That's like Michael came in with orbital, which is quite a, quite a collaboration.

I was just, I was in love right from the start. And so I, I was just primed for this when I first saw it. And again, and I didn't come out of it. Like I didn't know that I could go home and explain it to someone exactly what happened and why, but it was just cool. And it made me think, and it still does.

And it's, it has really memorable sequences. It, it, I mean, yeah, I'm not saying anything that you haven't already. It's just, it's a damn cool movie. And it feels, I like that it's self-contained. I like movies that are in space and basically confined to the ship.

And this one has like, I guess, two ships, three maybe. But it's all in there other than that short spacewalk. And that's just, I don't know, that's up my alley. for whatever reason, that scratches an itch that I hold so dearly. In the words of the movie, it is locked, cocked, and ready to rock. Well, and I don't know what it is about it either for me, but I agree.

I think there's something kind of really compelling about a closed spaceship film where it's like, you know, in a haunted house movie, there's still the possibility of being able to escape. In a space film, there's an inevitability to what's going on that I think I find very appealing because when it's done right and well and interesting, the films do kind of speak for themselves in terms of the quality. For as much as I look at this film and go, okay, I can see in 1997 why someone wasn't resonating with it, the CGI is not the best. And sure, some of the dialogue is not great. But all the acting's fantastic.

The music is great. And again, the story, the thing that really bugged me about the way this movie was received at the time is the story is very original and is not something that was being just bandied about constantly. To have a spaceship essentially possessed by the devil, or again, it's not outright explained what is going on, which I think also helps, you know, that's the thing, you know, to joke about the comic book, recontextualizing everything, the comic book just takes away all the ambiguity completely and makes it, you know, well, it's this and it's this and it's that, and it's this, it's like, okay. I mean, they go as far as to even name the demon that is in, that is kind of invested the ship and has also caused, uh, Sam Neill's character to be kind of influenced by everything.

And that's the same character that they reference in hereditary, uh, On top of everything else, by the way, it's payment. The king of hell. Which is the character from Hereditary that they talk about over and over again. So it's like, you know, I actually don't even want you to tell me what it was. Because that's not, I don't know.

For me, that's not what I need from this kind of movie. What I need from this kind of movie is exactly what the movie gives me. It has kind of an interesting high concept premise. It has some interesting fun twists. And I think by the end of it, like you said, I don't need anything else.

I don't want, and what I, and you know, even if I were to say like, well, by the end of the movie, here's what I, here's what I want from the end of the movie. Here's what I wanted more of. at the end of the film, it would not have been to learn why Dr. Weir made the ship. And it definitely also was not, how did the crew of the event horizon die? I don't care.

Like I, that actually, the less explained the better for those things, because those things are not a question that I had a question about. The things that I had questions about were the, I guess the things that the movie's actually asking me to ask it about, which is like, where did it go? What does that mean? How does it affect the people that are on the ship? How does it affect the people once they leave the ship?

Can they leave the ship? Those things are much more interesting than why did this happen or what happened to the people beforehand? We saw what happened to the people beforehand as much as we need to. Uh, and yeah, it's, it's odd to me. I always, I don't know.

Whenever I watch this movie, I'm always just kind of bummed out by the fact that it is one of those movies that had to find its audience because there were so many other movies that were coming out at the time that were nowhere near as creative as this film, especially in just the visuals that people, you know, well regarded immediately at the time. And this film had like find its audience, uh, like, okay, a sci-fi horror movie, a horror movie really shouldn't have to find its audience in terms of like the Friday night audience is right there. Uh, you know, the slender man movie and all these other kind of bogus cheapo Friday night movies had have made more money than this film did. Like you said, when it came out, you were the only one in the theater.

I think that must've been the case like broadly for this film because it, it was not, it was not financially successful. It costs like $ 70 million. and made like 50 possibly you know. Which is probably made its money back by now given that it's been issued so many times on dvd and blu-ray i mean they keep putting out additions so i assume it's it's uh in the black i guess i would say so now i i i think what you said about what it reveals and what it doesn't reveal mostly is a choice that I do appreciate creativity creatively. It reminds me of the shining, the hotel and the shining, like explains about as much as why that place is haunted. And then this, and I like that, like how much of what's going on with Jack Nicholson in that film, like they don't really get into it.

They hint at it and sort of, you know, poke holes in things that let you draw your own conclusions, which, if you've seen the documentary Room 237, a lot of people have. It's a very serious joke by Stanley, and when he stands there and shakes the guy's hand, the file rack becomes an erection, which is a very serious joke. What are you talking about? You have to. Yeah.

I've seen it. That movie is insane. I love it. But like, it's one of those things where anytime I talk about it, I just always think to myself, like, you know what? Any explanation is a good one.

As far as I'm concerned, if you can back it up with evidence, I'll believe whatever you say. Right. I think so. On this viewing, you know, I watched it with subtitles and I just learned little details that set it up because the dialogue is not great. especially at the beginning when it's all like techno babble you know here's what's going on and i just picked up on more of the establishing things that i hadn't before um and this but this is a movie that rewards multiple viewings like you already have your bearings expectations are history right they're way in the past you already know what it is you already know what it is and it's just about revisiting that world and how it makes you feel and i love that you know, here we are in space and there's lightning in cloud, like storm clouds around.

I love that. I, me too. It knows exactly what it is. It doesn't, it's not trying to be any more than it is. It's wearing so much of its influences right there.

And I just, I, again, like, Oh, there's no lightning in space. Like, yeah, but who gives a shit? Like, that's not the point. It's cool. It looks cool.

Yeah. It sets the mood. It's, I think the, so, for the most part, um, you know, there, what I wanted more from it is like you, it's like, well, I should say it's not like the explanation. I think that, that I just I noticed gaps I guess in the scenes like you know when we first see Sam Neill he's on this ship by himself and then the next scene he's on the ship with all these other people they never show him getting from one to the other. And so you could almost not even notice that he's made this transition, but there's in his, I think his progression to, you know, being the evil Sam Neill with scars all over his face and everything.

It kind of, he just sort of happens too quickly. Oh my God. Way too quickly. Seeing some gaps, some scenes missing that, whether they got to shoot it or not. And I know there's this fabled, incredible director's cut that we'll never see.

But I don't know if it's a case of they just didn't have time to shoot it or they had shot it and had to cut stuff out. But that's the kind of thing, like some of that connective tissue is just what I think is missing. It's not about the background mythology, who, what, where, when, why, how. It's just connecting, you know, threading all the scenes together, I think. And I completely agree.

I mean, you know, to speak to the kind of the Sam Neill of it all, what he said about the film, he said, I think it's like the movie is like 30 minutes too short is what he said, which is I mean, again, I completely agree. You know, it for me, I think, is maybe even. I mean, I would watch another, I would watch a three hour version of this movie. I just watched a three hour version of a fucking clown chasing kids around, you know, like I, I watched three hour versions of stupider, less successful, less original things. Uh, I mean, again, that fucking second it movie, all it does is retread old ground because those old grounds were successful.

That's why it was doing that. And that's why I appreciate event horizon. It doesn't, it doesn't do the same thing over and over again. Like it doesn't take it upon itself to beat you over the head with, Oh, it's demons. Oh, it's possessed.

Like there's so many ways that the ship is expressing what's going on. And I think it's so smart because we have each of these characters having a different external thing that has happened to them that the ship is exploiting. I like that so much. I think that's so smart and so fun and so interesting because it allows you to show that the ship is, it's not just, you know, it's not just Jason and chasing after people. Like there's some nuance to what the ship is doing.

It's, it's, it's causing you to go crazy and it needs, you know, it needs a crew. That's the thing. The ship needs a crew. The ship needs someone to like, I don't know, like it's never explained that the ship needs someone to man it or not, but the ship is in need of a crew because that is what is made clear through, through most of the second act and third act of the film is, like, you know, the ship needs a crew to, to man it to hell and back. And it's like, why we don't know for what reason is unimportant, but that is the motivation of the ship apparently.

And I like that. Like I said, so much of what happens in the film is driven by the characters and their own kind of backstories that it does feel like there's stuff missing. I mean, we only get like lines mentioned about things that have happened in the past, but it feels like there are monologues for each of the characters explaining kind of like they're, to coin a Westworld, they're like, you know, their core, their core programming, their, their, their cornerstone, like each of them has a thing that the ship exploits and it feels like we don't see all of them, but there were versions of each of those scenes for each of the characters. And yeah, it, I don't, you know, the thing about that, let's talk about the director's cut thing for a second.

This is one of those like lost media films. It is, I think, and you know, you said it like, we'll probably never see it. I don't know if we'll never see it, Because like anything else, I think there is a high possibility chance that somebody someday is just looking through VHSs somewhere and they find it. We've heard that happening with other things. It's not impossible.

But what's funny is the director's cut, the thing that people want from the director's cut is not what we're talking about in a lot of ways. What people want from the director's cut is all the kind of gory, gross shit that is– Again, you know, in a lot of ways, like very forward thinking for this film. You know, I just recently rewatched Hellraiser and Hellraiser is a pretty gnarly film, but it's only gnarly in like two or three scenes. It's not really pushing it. And this movie is not really pushing it either.

I mean, this movie is really not pushing it. And it feels like the stuff that they cut out is a lot of kind of the gnarlier, grosser stuff. But I also, like, I think for what the film is doing, it actually works where it's just like flashes of it. We just see it. Like, cause again, like, I don't know why you would need to like, oh, here's the full 20 minute cut of the other crew ripping themselves apart and having a fuck orgy and like blood and viscera.

Like, what do we, how much more of that do we really need to see? Like, what, what is that? What is that going to do for me as a viewer? Because I don't need to, I don't need to see it. it being kind of characterized the way that they've done it here, where it's the ship kind of giving them these visions, I think thematically makes sense. And so for me, it's like, whenever I've kind of been hearing the conversation about the director's cut, it's always about the gross stuff, not the, like you said, the connective tissue that is so clearly missing, especially with Sam Neill's character, who is effectively the main character of the movie.

And halfway through the film, it feels like they hand off to Lawrence Fishburne to Larry F and, and Jolie Richardson of all people, um, who, you know, I mean, Jolie Richardson, I haven't not in enough things other than nip tuck, which is the one thing that I can like think of her from like consistently, but they hand off to Sam Neill's character. And I almost don't even understand why they hand it off. Cause he could have just been the main character all the way to the end. And like, and he dies, like that's a horror movie thing. You can actually get away with that in a horror movie more than you can in most genres.

But yeah, for me, I just I feel like so much of the missed opportunities in this movie are in the director's cut. But when the director's cut conversation is had about this movie, that's not what people are wanting from a director's cut. And that's the part for me that I'm just like, I mean, sure, more gore and gross stuff. Fine. But that doesn't fill in the gaps like the stuff I actually want to see does.

I don't need more gore and to see the porn orgy or whatever, but I mean, I'm up for it. I definitely, you know, I'd watch it. Oh yeah, for sure. It's like, it would be best suited for like, you know, here's in the age of DVD special features, you know, here's the scenes we cut out. I don't.

Yeah. I don't want a director's cut just to like, I don't want that to be the definitive version. In the same way that George Lucas keeps messing his stuff up to be like, oh, well, that version he saw in theaters in 1977 doesn't exist. Here, here's this new one. I stuck some CGI crap in.

I hate that kind of retooling that they do. And I fear that that's what would happen with this. Whether Anderson wants it to or not, I feel like that's what would happen. But yeah. I don't need that.

I don't need that. I'm content with the greens and the blues and the silvers of the ship and just how it looks and how the doors are diagonal and they move, you know, they open like a diamond and the doors have teeth on them. And I just, the way that the corridor is shaped like an eye, everything is shaped like an eye in this movie. Eyes, eyes is, eyes is, eyes are like a, It's it's a thematic touchstone to this movie, but. The circuit boards that the you know, the hallways of circuit boards that Samuel.

I don't know solution, but it just looks so cool. And I think that that, you know, that maybe hurt the movie, too. Cause you know, there is this whole like, well, it, you know, it's a nice to look at film, but you know, it has, you know, it's a shitty plot. It's kind of the other, it's kind of the, I've seen some of that, you know, kind of as well, the conversation like, well, it's an interesting idea, but it's poorly executed. And it's like, you know, it's nice to look at it.

It's a guy, it's gothically inspired. And I would say it is like, I obviously, I think as well as you do, like I can tell what inspired this film in terms of the look. And it's, you know, it's gothic architecture. It's a sense of kind of, again, like, leaning into the haunted house of it all. I mean, the chamber where the warp drive is, is completely unnecessary in terms of like cosmetic design, other than if you're trying to make it look as horrifying as possible.

And like you mentioned, so much of the ship is similarly designed where it looks like a Gothic cathedral and they talk about it being inspired by a Gothic cathedral and the production design, you know, has said Notre Dame was part of the inspiration and it works. You know, I think that it works, but it does, I think, lend the idea to like, well, it's nice to look at, but there's nothing else there. And I think that there's a contingent of kind of the reviews that I read that came out at the time that say that. And I don't think it's fair, but I do get it. Because again, if you're not willing to meet the film where it needs to be met in terms of what it's doing, it does just kind of seem like, well, it's at least a well-produced film in terms of production design.

It doesn't look terrible. But if you don't like the plot, that's kind of the other kind of component to it. And that's the thing I noticed with some of those reviews. It's like, well, it's nice to look at, but I don't really think that the plot holds up. It's like, okay, that's fine.

At least people can agree it's an interesting designed film. Because like you said, it's just, it's so unique and no one has ever done anything else like it with a spaceship. And I mean, to even go to the, like you said, the design of the spaceship itself is so unique and weird. There's like this long chamber connecting the front of the ship and the back of the ship. And it's, it feels like, you know, a passageway from one, from one world to another, or you can use it as a number of metaphors is the film.

I'm sure could, or someone much smarter than me would, but it, it's so different in almost every way that I guess I just wouldn't, I guess I'm not surprised people didn't resonate with it because I do think that there's some of this where it's just like, if you don't, if you don't meet the film where it needs to be met, you're not going to like it, but at least you're not going to be bored while watching it because it's interesting to look at. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is very Gothic. Um, and I've, if you've ever read any, um, gothic short stories you know from horrors early days it has a lot of that in common like you know being written at the times where it was there was a lot of insinuation and a lot of more like tell versus tell versus show you know tell don't show like they couldn't those writers back then 19th century or 18th century whatever they couldn't I didn't get away with things that people can today.

So a lot of it was just hinted at. And this is kind of the same way, although, of course, yes, it's rated R. You do have blood, you do have violence, but like you said, it doesn't push as hard as you think it might or that it could. It's not even gratuitous when it can be. Yeah, there's even nudity with Sam Neill's wife.

I don't know if it's wife or girlfriend, but in the flashback, and it's not erotic. It is the least, like that is not the point of it. Well, and I would also say, you know, when we talk about the gore in this movie, I mean, there is gore. There's some gore, but there's not that much. I mean, there's really kind of a lack of gore.

You know, it's maybe to speak back to the kind of the, you know, the Friday night crowd. You know, this movie is not gory enough. It's not exciting enough. It is. For as exciting as this movie is and for as much as you and I like it, I think we could both kind of concede that if you're looking for a kind of big thrills horror movie, this one ain't it in a lot of ways.

It's a little bit, I wouldn't say headier, but because there's no monster chasing after people, because there's no visual, visible, external threat chasing people around like a Jason X, it is... I guess, slightly less interesting. Again, I just, you know, if you really just think about it for two seconds, the movie's really not that exciting in terms of the effects, in terms of the, it's not, I mean, it's not, like you said, it's not doing as much as it could. Even that scene where Jason Isaacs is like cut open and hung over the examination table. Do we see a close-up?

I was about to say that. Do we even see a close-up? No, we don't. Do we see a lot of what's going on with Jack Noseworthy's character? No, not really.

We see so little in this movie that it is kind of shocking when you think about the things that were cut from this movie. It is most of the gore, if not a bulk majority of the gore. And for movies, Scream is a gorier movie than this film. Scream has a guy getting disemboweled in the first 10 minutes of the movie. Like this movie, the furthest this one goes is Jason Isaac's being gutted, but you barely see it.

Like you, you see it from like far away. Yeah. And I like that. I don't know if that is again, how much that is the studio telling him, no, you got to get this R rating, but it's just, it's just, for me, the mind creates the worst vision, you know, than what you actually end up seeing. I just think that type of stuff works for me.

I was absolutely going to bring up the, is it Sean Pertwee that's hanging and has his torso, you know, open like he's been butchered. Like in any other horror movie, absolutely. You would see a closeup. You would see stuff dripping and dripping. And we don't, it's like, we don't, it's just not that kind of movie.

It's, it's smarter than that. I mean, it, like it scares, but it doesn't want to rely on the scares. That's just part of the overall, overarching, unsettling, disturbo mood it sets. It is more of like an even keel and you get these blips like that. Whereas a horror movie, a standard horror movie, you know, you're just going along and everything is jump to 100 and then jump back down.

This is not that. This is very just like linear storytelling. You know, like your heart rate is not going wild. it's more of a natural progression, if that makes any sense. Speaking of beeps, the ship's beeps, I just have to point this out, are the exact tone of my microwave. And so every time the ship beeped, I had to look back to see who was cooking something in the kitchen.

Nobody was. It is exactly the tone of my microwave. That's just a fun fact for anyone out there that needs to know such things. Why is my microwave levitating and speaking to the devil? Right.

And you know what? You mentioned The Shining, by the way, which I think, you know, in the movie The Shining, it gets lost that the film version doesn't seem to be the way the book is. In the book, it's the building that's possessed. I mean, it's the building that is demonic. Right.

It is the building that is causing all those things to happen in the film. I don't, it's not clear that that's what's going on. And I think Stephen King, you know, over explained in the book and kind of makes it a little bit clear and, and you know, whatever Kubrick doing his own thing, he's always going to want to do his own thing, but there are not a lot of these kinds of movies. If there are any other haunted spaceship movies, that's not a thing, you know, haunted building, a film about a haunted house is, sure. But when we talk about haunted houses, do we mean the building itself is haunted or do we mean that there are hauntings going on inside of it?

Cause there's a very different thing here. If we're talking about a building that's haunted, that's doing crazy things, it's still not even poltergeist. Like I'm trying, you know, the shining is the one that I think of when I'm talking about like, it's the living, the building has become a sentient organism. And that's the shine like that. The 63 haunting.

Is it wise? Okay. I believe so. It's like the walls like breathe and the faces on the door sort of move. Okay.

It's a lot. I'm guessing you haven't seen it. I have not. It's very suggestive. Like it's not a, like there's no monster in that.

Not either. So I think you'd like it if you'd like this. Well, and I like the idea of not having it be a monster. It's like they're in the belly of the beast, as it were, like they're inside the monster. And I like that because it makes it it makes that level of inescapable kind of tension ratcheted up that much more.

Because there's never, I mean, even at the end of this movie, you're not even sure, like, what the, like, did they survive? Yes, but are they able to get away? I love the kind of suggestive nature of the ending of the movie, but the ending of the movie's suggestive, kind of ambiguous ending works because the whole ship is possessed. It's not a ghost running around and making things happen. It's because the entire damn ship is alive now.

And that is such a novel, interesting idea to, that has not been remined before. And that I think for me is the thing about this that stands out, you know, not, not to speak to like what the twist of the film is. Oh, you know, the, the ship seemingly goes to hell. Okay. I like that.

Sure. But take that off the table because we've had things go to hell and come back before people go to hell and come back before the idea that this is a living spaceship in space that is actively fucking with the people on it is not Something that's been mined over and over again. And that for me is like the most interesting idea that this film puts forward because it's the thing that there's so much of like, again, so much of what's going on in the film is either. not real or perceived by the characters but also at the same time the ship can do anything so the ship being able to do anything and having the power to do anything is so interesting because again there's no ability to escape it at all and that just makes for like a so much more claustrophobic film than if this were set on earth you know just down the street.

Yeah, and I think those things are why it has eventually found its audience. It's because people are like, oh, this is, yeah, it may look like the alien ship a bit. You know, oh, this area is very sterile looking. This area is very grimy looking. But it doesn't play like that.

It is kind of, like you say, it's a rigid spectacle. That could be what people are responding to. I don't know. I haven't talked to many. I know one other person that really likes this movie.

It just hasn't come up. But I'd like to think that the very things we're talking about are why it has not only survived, but actually gotten that first life it never got to have. Well, and, you know, we also haven't really talked about him specifically, but the reason I wanted to do this movie initially was because of Sam Neill. And, you know, actually, you know, I think he is unfortunately the one who gets somewhat short shrift in the movie because his character, because like you said, he kind of is the hero and then the villain later at the end of the film. it's unfortunate that he is not given more time because there is so much more of his story that we do kind of need to see in terms of understanding why his character was so susceptible to going crazy and killing everyone.

And it just happens in the movie and it just happens very kind of quickly, not in terms of like, Oh, it's like the first 10 minutes of the movie. But once we kind of get the notion that it could happen, it then just does happen. And I don't, like that because again like it's the entire it's the twist that the entire film hinges on it is the kind of the idea of like why is the film existing it's because it's about it's a film about a guy who made a possessed ship okay so the main character then has to be on the ship with them why isn't he given the most time of anyone it's like well we'll give him more time than most but not all of the time it's like okay but like he's kind of the main character of the movie And yeah, you know, like I said, like the director's cut of the movie, I think needs more of him, less of anything else, because he drives everything forward.

And I mean, he even shares one of the endings with, you know, the characters that survive. And it's like, you know, I I wish there was more Sam Neill. But I want to ask you, like, thoughts on Sam Neill as an actor, thoughts on Sam Neill in this film, like, you know, general thoughts on Sam Neill. I've always liked him. even before Jurassic Park, which I think is how most people know him or first saw him. He's one of those guys that even though like Jurassic Park was at the time, the biggest movie ever made, like the most financially, like the highest grossing, I think, even though, you know, he's the star of that, like he was never quite an A-lister.

I mean, it's not, And I don't mean to denigrate him in that way. He's not a superstar. He's very well-respected and very well-liked and always turned in really good performances, even on a horror movie, like he would a costume drama. But he was not anyone's first choice to... Oh, got a hundred million dollar movie coming out this summer.

Let's put Sam Neill. That's that's our first go to. He wasn't that guy. He was in that weird realm of, you know, between a Lister and character actor, like just that really, really. Expert, well-respected, always delivers, but didn't quite have that. that one thing that undefinable it quality or whatever that, you know, bumps you up to the true big leagues.

And he worked with a lot of great directors and, you know, he made a lot of, like, it feels like his, his, his career is just back and forth between costume dramas, you know, period dramas and genre films. Like I know, I'm pretty sure you'd like John Carpenter's in the mouth of madness and, oh yeah sam like he's the star of that and that's that's another one of his great roles i think even though i think he's better in that than the movie itself is um but yeah he's one of those guys and i think in part because he was not tom cruise will smith level is that he felt always felt like someone you really knew someone you could know. And so his passing, like hit you harder than you expected. And no one expected, I don't think anyone expected that.

He was way too young, um, to die like he did, but like, you know, it hurt. And he's just one of those people that for decades, he's been in our lives through these movies, um, you know, movies that, again, his career is so, is so long, like movies that people watch every day and movies that people haven't seen since they came out. Like it's, it's all over the place. The guy did everything, but, um, he, uh, he will be missed. Absolutely.

But like he turned in so much good work that he'll, he's, he's, he'll live on till people don't watch movies anymore, which is, I hope doesn't happen in my lifetime. Yeah, he's just I think he's great. I think he's very at the same time as respected as he is. I think he's also underrated. Well, and I think that there were opportunities in his career where things could have gone differently.

I mean, at one point he was. considered for an even screen tested for James Bond. I want to say that was when Timothy Dalton was recast as Bond, but there are screen tests with Sam Neill as James Bond and there's photos of it. And it's, it would have been different. I don't know. I mean, I don't know what that would have looked.

I don't know how that would have recontextualized Sam Neill's career, because I don't know if he's ever in Jurassic Park, if he becomes, you know, James Bond, he probably doesn't have the time for it. And I also don't know if that would have made us think, you know, differently of Sam Neill as an actor. You know, that's it's so funny. I think about Jurassic Park. Right.

And I think about that movie and the actor from that movie who ends up being the star and the star, quote unquote, of that movie is Jeff Goldblum. Even though it's a ensemble piece with fucking Laura Dern and Sam Neill, neither of which became like any bigger of stars than they were at the time because of it. even though the movie was massively successful. I mean, again, like you said, it's one of the most successful films ever made. There's they, they are still making Jurassic park films. There's one that came out as recently as last year for fuck's sake.

And within the last decade, there have been how many Jurassic park films for including one that had Sam Neill in it in a like rather like extended role to that one being the last one before they rebooted it again. It is weird, because yeah, when you think about Jurassic Park, you think about how successful the movie is, but you don't think about how successful the actors were afterwards, because it didn't really do anything for their careers. I think it's almost that the movie Jurassic Park was more about CGI dinosaurs, and the CGI dinosaurs were the star of that movie, less the actors. The actors were just kind of there being believable kind of reactors to the dinosaurs. But the dinosaurs end up being the star of that movie, and Steven Spielberg, obviously.

But yeah, it's weird. I think of Sam Neill and he is a guy who the films that I like of his are this one. Jurassic Park's fine. The first one, I don't think the first one's my favorite. I think I've probably seen the second one way more.

And I like the second one a lot because the second one is just a Jeff Goldblum thing more than is anything else. Um, but for me, Sam Neill really, like you already kind of mentioned that he is in my favorite John Carpenter film, which is in the mouth of madness. Like that is without a doubt, my favorite John Carpenter film. I know it's not his best film. I know it is a deeply flawed film like this one is.

But I think it's a very interesting, fun, and novel film that was similar to Event Horizon, came out way before it ever should have. It has had a harder time finding its audience than this film has. Because it is even more of an, quote, untraditional horror movie, unquote. Because it is a meta musing on horror and all kinds of other things. This is at least a straightforward horror movie.

Sam Neill was cast in that movie, and that movie is like... about as weird a horror movie as you can get in terms of being made in the 90s, has more in common with Wes Craven's New Nightmare in terms of tone and what it's doing than most horror movies coming out at the time. And to speak to another movie that was deemed as a failure when it came out, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, because it came out and people didn't get it. And again, I think a lot of people, similarly to this film, similarly to In the Mouth of Madness, just discarded it and disregarded it because they didn't get it when it came out. And that's unfortunate because like you've said, and like I've echoed, these films have found their audience subsequently.

It is just, you do wonder what things could have been and how things could have been different if Event Horizon had been a massive success. I mean, I don't know how it could have, but if it had made Jurassic Park money, which is, I think, what they were wanting, obviously, like anybody making a movie in the 90s would want Jurassic Park money. Not getting Jurassic Park money doesn't help you as an actor if you're one of the main actors in a movie. it is seen as a, well, you couldn't pull the audience. You couldn't get the audience to show up. And you're blamed for that as much as the director is.

I mean, it affects you and your career. And yeah, I don't think Sam Neill ever His career never got to the Brad Pitt, George Clooney. We're casting a Sam Neill type is not a thing. Like you said, he would play a certain kind of role. It is crazy to me, though, that he ends up being in the MCU in Thor Ragnarok, which is so funny.

I think that only happens because Taika Waititi is the director of that movie, I feel like. But it is very funny that even Sam Neill got some of that Marvel money. So good for him. I was disappointed and very saddened when he passed away earlier this year because he is an actor who tried many times to interview and would have loved to talk to because he played a big part in my childhood. I mean, anyone who grew up in the 90s definitely saw a lot of Jurassic Park, a lot of Jurassic Park.

The first thing I ever saw him in was when I was a kid. He's the star of Omen 3, The Final Conflict. Actually, I don't think there's a 3 in the title. But he plays Damien, grown up, and a politician. Who knew?

A devilish politician? What? What a strange and novel concept. The Antichrist as a politician? I like that movie, and I like him in it.

But one of my favorites of his is Dead Calm, where he and... It's him and Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane on a boat. And it's like a Hitchcockian thriller. Have you ever seen that? I have not.

Sounds amazing. You need to look that up. It's directed by Philip Noyce, the guy who made the Patriot Games and the one after that. Oh, Clear and Present Danger. Yeah.

Yeah. Huh. Interesting. Yeah. He did The Saint as well.

But yeah, it's a great movie. And it's one of those like I think it was Nicole Kidman's first studio, like American studio film. Uh, but you know, it's three people on a boat. How, how interesting can that be a lot? Like it's a really solid thriller.

Interesting. Yeah, no, I, I, and you know, I was going to say like something that when I think of Sam Neill, you know, the thing I think of, he has a very special place in my heart because he was in, the movie that we covered as the first film ever for the culture cast, which was possession. Talk about a fucking talk about a film to start your show with. I mean, my God in heaven. And he's great in it.

I, you know, I don't, he's not the best part of that movie by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, Isabella Johnny is, I think the best part of that movie. Sam Neill's kind of just not playing second fiddle, but he's just kind of there. She's obviously so good in that movie. And it's I mean, that movie is a lot.

I wouldn't advocate anybody going to watch that fucking afternoon. But he I don't know anything that Sam Neill is. And I think he really elevates it. And I would say the same about Lawrence Fishburne, you know, someone else we haven't really said a whole lot about. But Lawrence Fishburne, man.

He is just– everything he's in is great. My girlfriend and I have been watching Hannibal, which he's in. He's a huge– plays a huge part. He plays the Scott Glenn, Jack Crawford role from the movies– or movie, I guess, singular. I guess Harvey Keitel played that character in Red Dragon, I believe.

Yeah. right lawrence fishburne's great i mean he's so good in that role i know a lot of people know him as morpheus from the matrix i think it's unfortunate because like yeah he's great in the matrix but lawrence fishburne has like the most like calm energy of any actor i can think of like he's always just calm like he's always low energy larry like but not in a bad way not any bad way but he when he gets when he gets elevated as an actor, shit gets serious is what it feels like. And what's crazy is, you know, Lawrence Fishburne is an actor who, uh, he was 14 on the set of apocalypse now. Yeah. What the fuck? So he was 16 to be able to work.

That's, that's crazy. He does not look 14. No, not in apocalypse. Now he doesn't look 14. And what's crazy is like, he's been acting since he was a child effectively.

And he is still showing up in things. I mean, he, I believe I'm like, I don't know if you've seen it, but speaking of Scarlett Johansson and Jurassic park and new films, Lawrence Fishburne's in a new exorcist movie coming out. Like he's in that film. Like, and it's probably going to be better for his involvement because he like every time he's in something, he's really great in whatever it is. And, you know, yeah, he's great in the matrix, but that anybody who knew Lawrence Fishburne going into it should have known he was going to be great.

Like they cast him in it because he's, his energy is just so kind of unique and what he brings to a role is so unique. And, you know, not to say, you know, Kathleen, Kathleen Quinlan or Sean Pertwee or Jason Isaacs aren't bringing something interesting to the role, but definitely some of the actors in this movie are given, you know, again, the film as we see it is giving them more to do. You know, Jason Isaac's character, who, you know, is the one that gets cut open and laid over the operating table. There's a whole subplot in the movie about why that ends up happening to him. It's because he has a fear of being cut open while alive.

And then they show this giant scar on his chest before he gets eviscerated. Like, none of that's explained. The only way you would know that is if you read the script or you, you know, again, doing what we're doing and did the research ahead of time. There's so much that's left on the table with this movie that is just a shame because it does feel like we're robbed of some great additional kind of stuff for the performances, additional footage of the performances that are already all really solid. There's nobody in this film that is not turning in a great performance.

Even people that again, like Jack Noseworthy, who I really haven't seen anything else or Richard, uh, you know, the, the actor who plays, uh, who plays Cooper. I mean, he's, uh, he's also great. Like, and I haven't, you know, it's not that I haven't seen him in a lot of things, but he's not in everything. You know, Richard T. Jones is not in everything I watch all the time.

Same with Jolie Richardson, but they're all really good in this movie, like individually, but also they work together as an ensemble crew. They kind of have that, You know, back and forth camaraderie, but also giving each other shit. You know, you mentioned the baby bear line. There's there's an endearing nature to the crew that I think it makes it that much more like disappointing when almost all of them die. It's like the film actually gets me invested in the characters, which, as we both know, as well. horror fans, like that is like the hardest thing to do for a horror movies to get you genuinely invested and engaged in the, the kind of the people that are going to be offered up as, as, you know, meat bags to the film.

Because again, like, you know, you watch a movie like this, you know, not everybody's going to make it, but you do hope that the film is going to make their deaths feel earned. And I think it does. Okay. So Richard T. Jones, right?

That's his name. Yep. I, I don't know how this happened, but I had no memory of him being in this movie. Really? Genuinely.

And this is the fourth time I've seen it. So, and he's one of the survivors, like. Unnecessarily, even I would say like, he's, he's the one character where I'm like, did he need to survive? Did not, you know, I mean, again, I guess, yes, he did. Cause it's him and Jolie Richardson and Jack Noseworthy.

That's it. But yeah, I actually think that Lawrence Fishburne's character dying feels like a studio note at the end. Like it doesn't, Richard T. Jones should have died and Lawrence Fishburne should have survived like that. It makes no, it's very odd to me.

He's one of those, like, he's like Joey Pantoliano in the third season of the spring. I was like, why did he make it to the fourth season? Like, why didn't he just get murdered in the third season? Like what is gold? Like, why like explain to me it's like okay we're gonna do something else with it but like richard d jones is just one of those characters this movie was like that's the guy who should have died like.

Yeah so he's the it's not his fault but this is the one performance that i don't think works as well because he he has that i call it the will smith part it's like the wisecracking sassy black guy you know It's what. Jason Momoa does now, professionally, more or less. Yeah. But it's like, you know, he's always like, oh, shit, motherfucker. You know, it's basically everything Lawrence Fishburne has been fighting his career not to do, you know, not to be pegged into that token minority role.

And unfortunately, this movie does saddle Richard T. Jones with that. But that's the one performance that I don't. I don't think works. And maybe that's why I do not remember him being in it, which or maybe it's just me getting old one or the other.

Well, and I would I would say, you know, if I if there is a performance in the movie that is the weakest, I do think it is his Cause like you said, it is just a lot of kind of Jason Momoa ask, you know, yeah, man, or dude, bro. Yeah. Like, Whoa. Like it's a lot of reaction. It would be in wrestling, what we call color commentary.

It doesn't add a lot. It's meant to be like, I don't know, like, you know, in another film would be like, he's the audience, his eyes and ears through the film. Like he's the audience surrogate. Like there's, That's not the case. I don't see it that way.

Like I just, he is the one character in the film that I don't understand why he even survives because it's just, it seems, it seems like if you're going to have a male character survive, just have it be Lawrence Fishburne, you know, like I don't, I don't know. Like that's the, you know, the ending of this movie, I think, you know, and to speak to the part of the film, you know, the performance of the film that didn't work for you, I would say the part of the film that maybe doesn't work for me, and this me personally, like this is just kind of my like quibble with the movie as the movie. I think the film gets less interesting as it goes on. And I think that kind of, once we get to the part where Sam Neill goes crazy, it picks back up and that's like the third act.

But the second act of the movie, I think for me, it's a lot of like missed opportunity after missed opportunity after missed opportunity. Because again, like it is, there's a lot of Richard T. Jones in there whose role is kind of just very generic and, It feels like a lot of the other stuff is just truncated, like the Sam Neill stuff's very truncated. But there were parts of this movie in the third act where I'm just like, I don't think they knew what to do with the third act of this movie. And based on the research, it had two endings.

They didn't know what to do with it. And it's unfortunate because the direction they went, I don't think was the right one. I think it should have been Lawrence Fishburne survives at the end. Richard T. Jones dies.

You have two people survive with Jack Noseworthy in the tube at the end. There you go. Like, Richard T Jones's character does not validate his existence enough in the film. And we're not even like given enough time with him to understand why he would survive. He just, if he's going to survive, why did anybody else die?

Is the real question that was given so much time and effort. Like, and he's the one who's just like, well, he's just one of the survivors. Like, but why? Like to what, to what reason even? I think it's because he's the, the closest thing we have to comic relief is, In this movie, but the movie doesn't need any comic relief.

It's not that type of movie. And that's why his. They're not catchphrases, but you know what I mean? His lingo. That's that's what's why it just sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

That's the 1997 of it all is really. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's like I said, it's the Will Smith part. Yeah.

It's like a, it's like independence day, but not as well. Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. Yeah. You know, it's yeah. I, I, God, man, to speak to independence day, you know, and Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill of it all, like independence day is a film that I don't, you go back and rewatch it.

Like the Will Smith stuff doesn't work very well anymore. Like it's just, it falls very flat because like, Hey, we all know that Will Smith is kind of like a fucking fruit loop of the highest order. So like, he's not nearly as endearing as he used to be, which I think was part of it. Like Will Smith used to be really endearing. And now it's just like, he's just this out of touch, like rich weirdo who's, who's married to someone who, uh, my girlfriend made this joke in the car who was married to someone who Tupac killed himself to get away from.

He's in hiding still to get away from Jada Pinkett Smith. And wouldn't you be too? Good God. Snake woman of the highest order. Like Jada Pinkett Smith makes me uncomfortable and very few people make me uncomfortable, but she just has this really shitty energy as a person.

I feel like, and like Will Smith is involvement with her. I think it's like further diminishes him as an actor. Cause like the shit and bullshit that she brings to things, he's gotten himself involved with like validated and rubber stamped and there was that like post independence day, Will Smith, like every black character in a movie has to be the funny upbeat one. It's like, why? Like that's, so now we're typecasting black actors based on one black actor's success.

Like that's just, that's, that's not great. That's not good in and of its own, right? Like what the hell? Like, come on. Like Lawrence, like you said, Lawrence Fishburne as an actor has been fighting against that sentiment his entire career.

Like, you know, I want to be taken seriously as a black actor, not just being, you know, being given the comic relief lines, which again, I mean, I'm not saying good or bad. Like someone has to do that. And if they're going to keep doing it, someone should be employed and making money. Exactly. Obviously.

But also we shouldn't just be typecasting actors based on the success of another actor who happens to share the same skin color. That's, you know, very capitalistic. That's for sure. Get Jada Pinkett Smith's name out of your mouth. Good God in heaven.

The last person I want anywhere near me is Jada Pinkett Smith. Good God. Like I said, Tupac's in hiding because of Jada Pinkett. She still pines for that man. You still hear her talking about it.

Tupac, it's been 40 years since you died. Come back to me, Tupac. He's like, I'm staying gone. I'm in Barbados for a fucking reason. Dude, he has CDs coming out every year, man.

He has new music coming out next week, I bet. The most prolific, posthumous artist of all time, Tupac Shakur. Thank God. How did we get on Tupac? Because of black actors in the 90s.

And you know, Lawrence Fishburne, I think, is that interesting counterpoint because if you think of his, the famous role of Neo, or opposite Neo in The Matrix as Morpheus, that role is so understated comparatively to anything Will Smith has. Like ever done, you know, Jillian percent. Yeah. Will Smith, I think is kind of known as the kind of overacting actor and Lawrence Fishburne. I think the, the, the, the worst thing you can say to Lawrence Fishburne is sometimes he doesn't make the best choices for projects, but he always has the kind of same even keel energy that I don't know.

I just, I love Lawrence Fishburne as an actor. I don't think, enough good things are said about Lawrence Fishburne as an actor. Like, I think he just kind of has been, you know, he was, he was Morpheus in the matrix. Like that's it. Like, man, he's done.

He's so good. I love everything. He's like Sam Neill in that regard. He's never been a list, but he's worked forever, worked forever and is well-respected and always does great work. Like never heard anybody say a bad word about Sam Neill or Lawrence Fishburne, like ever.

You know, to be fair, I haven't heard a lot of bad things said about anybody in this movie. But in terms of people that have been working for a long time that are like the, you know, the forefront poster front facing of this movie, Sam Neill and Lawrence Fishburne. Yeah, they're two actors who. Reliable, I would say, you know, reliable, always, always turning in a really fantastic performance. But yeah, not.

Yeah, they never really became. House, I guess, I don't know. Like, I guess Lawrence Fishburne is the closer of the two. Yeah. Morpheus.

Household name. Yeah. Like people recognizing just the name. Yeah, probably. Probably.

It's actually, it's probably pretty even. That's my guess. I mean, again, yeah. Like the visibility of the two, like. Who knows?

Yeah. But I do, I do like that those two guys are paired together in a movie that ends with the track funky shit. By the prodigy. By the prodigy of all things. Yeah.

That always struck me as funny. The way the movie quietly ends and then it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down. I thought that was funny the first time. Like, what? Like, huh?

You know, but now I look forward to it. Like, I love that it does that. It definitely reminds you that this film came from 1997. Yeah. And I always wanted, like, a soundtrack.

And I know there is a soundtrack with, uh, the score, Michael came in score, but I always wanted like the music inspired by event horizon that would have funky shit and the orbital stuff and other electronic acts of that time. Like that's what I really wanted from this movie. It's forgot because I'm, I'm like a sucker for those types of, uh, those CDs at the time, those soundtrack CDs. I love them. Those things are gone.

Speaking of things that are gone, no longer existing. Well, they exist in a box in my house. That's fair. Other than that, you're correct. Speaking of things that don't really exist anywhere else, you know, to speak to the theming and the ideas of this movie, this, I guess there's one other thing that this film kind of inspired directly is a video game called dead space, which it's like the thing in space, which I'm not going to speak to the thing, but, It's more The Thing inspired because it's a marker that makes people mutate and transform, less a ship.

But a lot of the imagery and the design of the spaceships in that game are inspired by Event Horizon and the way that this kind of gothic imagery and kind of the weird... design the specific design choices are very inspired by event horizon and that's you know that's the thing it's like even when the things that were inspired by this were coming out they weren't it's something they weren't mentioning event horizon but it's like this wasn't well enough known that it being inspired by event horizon is moving the needle for anyone and so i guess like in that regard, this movie is still kind of... I don't know. One of the things I wanted to ask you as someone who talks about a lot of cult film and talks about cult film making, what is the success of a film measured by?

Is it more important to be... long run successful, successful upfront. Does a cult film have to be successful in the longterm to be considered a cult film? Like I, this is a cult film now, I guess maybe this is a fucking paramount film for God's sakes. Like it was a big budget studio movie. But when it failed critically and commercially, is that.

How it becomes a cult film? Then if it's a studio film, it has to fail. No. Okay. I, I don't think there's a cut and dry answer.

I think it just depends on who you ask. I do think just the fact that not every movie that bombs becomes popular. It doesn't happen. There were movies that didn't do great upon initial release and then they did so well in video that they got sequels in the theaters and then those sequels did incredible business, but this just, man, this just took a long time to catch on. Um, but yeah, not, not, not like there is no, just if your film did this, but didn't do this and did this, then that equals cult film.

I don't think it's like that, but it, you know, it has a fervent following. It's people that kind of like you that keep talking it up and bringing it back and keeping it alive and spreading the word. Like I think that that's a big part of it. Just like you're not getting paid to shill it, but you're doing it anyway. Like you want more people to see it.

Well, like anything else, the more people that see it is the hope that it moves the conversation forward so that it inspires more things or another thing comes out. I mean, I'm not one of those people that's like, Oh, well, you know, I, I, the sequel is going to negate the first one. Like I still have the first one to watch. You know, I know that there's this whole thing of like, Oh my God, you know, George Lucas raped my childhood with the fourth Indiana Jones. Like I've never felt that way because the first three movies still exist.

They weren't like put into a vault and we can't watch them because the fourth movie came out. I'd love to live in a universe where anytime a new movie comes out, that's a sequel to the original movie. The original movie is then forever banished from existence and we can't watch it anymore. Like I, Or like a film being remade, like the original goes away. Like anytime a remake exists, the original film is then taken and thrown in the trash.

Like that's not what happens. It's not that- That's going to happen to your possession because that's being remade. I know, which is fucking insane that that movie's being remade. It's like someone making Irreplaceable. Like, let's remake Irreplaceable.

Like, yeah, that's, yeah, right. Like it's- it's, that's always my issue with any kind of conversation about like cult films or, you know, sequels to cult films or, or, you know, films being successful in the long run. Like films don't, don't exist in a vacuum and they don't disappear once a sequel or prequel or remake is made. The original film still exists. And you know what?

I think the only time a film diminishes another film is when it's, A sequel that recontextualizes the first film completely and is made by the person who made the first one. Otherwise, someone else is probably doing something with someone else's thing and they want to do their own thing with it. And everybody has their own ideas on things. And I don't think Aliens is reductive of Alien. even though there's this idea that, you know, like aliens is better than alien and I can't like one without the other. It's like, no, no.

Like the aliens is just someone else's idea of what alien could be. And they don't, I mean like, yes, they inspire one another or they're inspired by our direct sequels, but one can exist without the, one can exist without the other, but one can't exist without the other. And I don't think that again, if we want to have this conversation about like, well, it ruined this and I know we ruined my child. They're like, no, like there's none of that. Like this is, If someone were to make an Event Horizon anything, I would be on board because that means more Event Horizon is existing in the world.

And yes, the comic book is kind of too explainy for me. I don't need everything explained. It also does open up some interesting doors and ask some interesting questions that maybe someone else had that I didn't. And great. That's a good thing.

Like, you know, I'm glad someone else resonated with Event Horizon in a way that was similar to the way I did, but not identical. And that's what I think is important as someone who watches a lot of film is everyone else who watches any film other than me is going to have a different feeling about it other than I did. Like not maybe not specifically the same one that I had might be had by someone else, but specifically not going to be the case. We might have same ideas on things, even you and I. But how you would do a sequel to this and how I would do a sequel or a prequel or a remake would be different.

And that's... I don't know. If you want to watch the same thing over and over again, the original movie exists. I don't know why you need to have somebody make the same thing over again. That's the complaint I have for any sequel.

If a sequel at least does something different than the first movie, I consider that more of a success than just, oh, we're going to retread old ground a la Ghostbusters 2. At least... The Event Horizon comic book does something different. Does it over-explain things that were under-explained in the first movie? Sure.

But clearly someone else wanted those things explained, and so that was part of what they wanted to do with whatever Event Horizon thing they were doing. Fine. If it were me, I wouldn't be doing that, but they didn't give me the comic book. So. It is what it is.

My takeaway from this movie is like yours. I'm glad it found its audience. I don't need anything else. If there is more to it that ends up coming out in the next 20 years of this, cool. But I don't need anything else.

This movie, like you said, stands alone as its own thing. And it even has kind of a typical horror movie horseshit ending. And I don't resent the movie for the ending. I just think like, you kind of gilded the lily right at the end. Yeah.

Right. It's a little gilding of the lily moment. I'm like, Oh God damn you. Like, I don't know. It's not, it's, you know, a movie that just came out recently that I've, I don't think enough people saw it.

Cause I think it's one of those pandemic movies, but it also kind of does the same thing with the ending is the boogeyman, that adaptation of that Stephen King short story. it does that same thing like this movie does where it's like, well, it's open ended, but that does it smarter where it's like, it could be open ended. Maybe, maybe not, but we still get a satisfying ending to the movie. I think maybe the part of this movie that I'm least satisfied by is the ending. Cause the ending is just kind of like, they couldn't pick which direction to go. So they went both directions and it's like, nah, that's lazy.

It's like a double fake out. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Real quick, speaking to finding its audience, I just want to go through some of the other movies that were on the top 10 the week this was released.

Because how many people do you hear talking about these movies today? Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so excited to hear what these are. You did the thing that I was going to do, but I'm so excited. Okay.

Well, one of these we've kind of hinted at, which was Men in Black. Um, which is not like people don't talk about it as much as they used to. Like it used to be like this vaulted. Oh yeah. There's a ride at universal studios like that.

If there's a ride at universal studios for your movie, I think that has moved the needle significantly. Yeah. All right. So here we go. Contact.

That's the Robert Zemeckis movie. I'm like, I'm not saying even. If these are good or bad, that's a Jodie Foster alien film. Yeah. OK, it's not like that's not the point.

It's like, do you hear people talking about this the way that people talk about Event Horizon now? Picture Perfect, which is a romcom with Jennifer Aniston, like I had totally forgotten about. You have George of the Jungle, the Brendan Fraser vehicle. I love that movie. Spawn.

Oh, my God. That's a film that I reference a lot when talking about Jurassic Park and bad CGI, bad CGI movies. Conspiracy theory with Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts. Never seen it. Yeah.

You're not missing anything. Air Force One, Harrison Ford. Get off my plane. That's what you, that's what people remember. That's what people, when people talk about that movie, they talk about that line.

And then last is Copland. Stallone. Yeah. Stallone's big dramatic bid for an Oscar. But like, you know, I mean, Men in Black.

I would say Men in Black. That's it. That's still IP. That's kind of alive. I mean, it's in a down.

You know, it's on a down and out period right now, but still it will be rebooted before long, I'm sure. But like those movies aren't really discussed today like this movie is. People like you. This movie keeps popping up online articles about it. Reviews like, oh, I just saw this movie.

Watch this this October if you want to see something you've never seen before this Halloween. there's a lot of those articles lately this month so it's just indicative of the word spreading I think. I guarantee you we're going to see an event horizon something else I just you're right yeah and and like you mentioned like I I would air on the side of a show like a Noah Hawley style alien earth type thing. And you know what? I think, you know, I've always been of the mindset. If you're going to do reboots or remakes or sequels to anything, it shouldn't like, yeah, I get it.

Everyone's going to do a fucking sequel to the most successful goddamn thing. And then they complain when it doesn't make as much money as the thing before. Why not set yourself up for success and make a sequel to something that's not super successful or like middle of the road successful and make it even better than the thing before, and then be surprised when you make more money than the other thing did, and then you can really pat yourself on the back. That's hard, I get it, because you're needing to hire people to write something better and do a better job than someone else did and all these things, but is that less... taxing than trying to be as successful as something else was and not meet that level that it made it.

Oftentimes a level of success that is hard to replicate. I'll, uh, let's just see obsession backrooms, uh, the Blair witch project. Like I don't think back the next backrooms movie is going to be as successful as last one. I don't think obsession, whatever Curry Barker does next is going to be as successful as his last thing. It just isn't going to be.

And then people are going to go, well, you know, it fell off and it's like, well, you know, the first thing was so successful, no one even fucking could have anticipated the success of it. And so I am of the mindset, you should always be adapting things where the ceiling is higher for it than the, than where it got to before. Not because, not because I want to adapt things that weren't successful, but because a lot of things are really close to being successful. And there's just a couple of things that need to be changed or taken into consideration in to fix or help it, like the third act of this movie, or some of the other things in this movie. I don't want to go and try to make another movie in a series of films that were imminently very successful out of the gate.

I don't want to set myself up for failure to be compared to other things. negatively because I never met them at that high level of success. Like look at any TV show ever that had a first season that was good. None of the other seasons are ever considered as good as that one. Like, Oh, it fell off. You know, it came, you know, rarely is it, you know, well, the first season was bad.

And the second, like most of the time it's the first season was not great. Everything else that came afterwards is, higher success i can think of several shows where it's like the first season great everything else is terrible like there are several shows like that but it's not it's just i don't know like i've never understood the way things are done in the industry because my mind is not immediately jumping to because something else was successful this will be successful that's like saying it rained yesterday so it must rain tomorrow like nah I don't know. Because accountants, that's why Chris. I know the business side of show business. Yeah.

People that make decisions based on numbers as opposed to creative ideas and, you know, putting their finger up to their neck and judging the pulse of things, you know, like we didn't need 8 million Marvel films in the last 10 years. Like, and they realized that eventually, eventually it caught up to them. Like, It catches up to you eventually. Even the most stalwart of franchises have fallen off. Star Wars, for the longest time, was just a fucking money factory, just printing money.

Same with the MCU, really. MCU was printing money. And it's not anymore. It's not. Not the way that it used to.

And yeah, I've always been of the mindset, redo something that was... Two thirds, three quarters of the way there. Don't do something that was like that. It's just I don't know. You just you're setting yourself up for failure in a way that you almost shouldn't be surprised.

You know, like when when David Gordon Green remade Halloween, everybody was like, well, as long as it's better than those other Halloween movies, we're good. no one expected it to make like 300 million fucking dollars. Like that's, I don't know. That's, that's the thing. It's like, you know, I look at sometimes the way the industry does thing and I'm like, okay, like they get it. Then other times I'm like, you guys just missed the plot completely.

So yeah. All it takes is more talking about this movie, more people seeing it. Uh, the more people that ran it, like it, yeah, you make that, you will make that a reality. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, just get Event Horizon reappraised.

Well, like I said, a comic book came out. They talked about a TV series, so I'm sure we'll get something. It's an IP. It's not an unknown quantity, and it's had several things done with it now, so it's even more of a known IP than it was before. Anything else, Rod, we want to talk about?

Have we exhausted our horizon of events? Man, I am funky shitted out. I have no more. You got to do the thing that the guy does in that music video, the prodigy. I really want to cut my hair like that with a little.

So that would be the only thing that might make that, that might sour me on that music cue is if they played the music video on the side. Or had the cast come out and do dance moves to it. Oh, can you imagine? Like how some comedies do. At the, at the end, they all just take a bow together.

Are you saying that you don't want a music video like the one for Hellraiser three, where Lemmy is playing for help for, for, for fucking the, for pinhead and the Cenobites. You don't want that. I don't. And I didn't get that. And that's good.

More power to this movie and Paul WS Anderson. I'll tell you, you know, people hate Hellraiser three. I just don't get the hate. I just don't understand. It could be so much worse.

Have you seen four through nine or however many of those goddamn movies? I have. I have. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Again, speaking of hell in space, you know, like fuck the fucking Hellraiser movie in space is pretty goddamn bad in and of itself. And fun fact, I saw that in the same theater at the same AMC that I saw this. And there were three other people in that screening, whereas this had zero. That's wild.

Yeah. That film being what? What is that? That's Hellraiser 4, yeah? Yeah.

I think so. Hellraiser.... Bloodlines bloodlines yeah which is the which by the way i think most people stop at two with that franchise i stop at three which is one film more than most people but i don't think anybody goes further than three so you know even this film does hell in space better than the film that was doing the kind of hell on earth thing first so yeah well rod when you're not here joining me talking about event horizon where can people find you and the things that. You work on sir You said it up front. Flickattack.com is my home on the web.

And they can also, there or Amazon, buy the book, Flick Attack Movie Arsenal, book one. Book two coming soon. I'll keep saying that. For the end of the year, right, Ron? That's my goal, man.

That's my goal. But life keeps throwing me curveballs, so I'm still working. Too busy watching Event Horizon. Rewatching. That's right.

And giving endearing speeches at weddings. So I've been told. That too. Thanks. You're welcome.

As for me, you can't find me on the internet giving speeches at weddings. You can find me on the internet at weirdingwaymedia.com where all the audio fit to listen for you can be found. This show, The Projection Booth, Midnight Viewing, all the shows that I work on or that I don't work on can be found there. So head on over there. Rod and I are doing a show in the coming year all about the SNL movies.

There are less than you think, but more than you might remember. And you know what? Rod and I are being pretty strict and not doing a forever show. We might be talking about movies forever, but we're not going to be doing a forever SNL show. We're limiting ourselves to what, 10?

So that'll be coming after the first of the year. So definitely give that a listen if you're a fan of SNL. If not, just like, rate, and review this show wherever you get it, which should be iTunes and Spotify. If it's not, iTunes and Spotify, that's where you should go. Patreon.com slash CultureCast, Patreon.com slash Projection Booth.

And you know what? Patreon.com slash Richard Haddam is where you can go to kick a couple dollars my way, Mike's way, or Richard's way. And yeah, if you want bonus content, that's where you'll find it. Rod, thank you so much for joining me. It was fun.

I'm glad we got to talk about a horror movie that has Sam Neill in it, which is like, there's two options. So I'm glad that this was one of them. Thank you too, baby bear. Thanks, mama bear. And we'll talk to you on the next episode.