Sometimes, you just got a good feeling. Kurt Russell knows a cult classic when he sees one, having starred in a few with the likes of action movies Big Trouble in Little China and Escape From LA. Paul WS Anderson, director of Event Horizon, was told by Russell his horror movie would be a sleeper hit.
In a retrospective interview on the classic science fiction movie, Anderson reveals the wisdom Russell imparted to him. “When the movie was first released, it did OK business, but it wasn’t what I had hoped for it. I was going on to make a movie with Kurt Russell, and I showed him Event Horizon,” Anderson recalls to Variety. “He said, ‘Paul, in 20 years time, that’s the movie you’re going be really glad you made’. He was right!”
The production the two were going to collaborate on was Soldier, an action movie about a supersoldier who gets left behind by the military. Anderson consider Russell’s words a kindness, since they were about to enter a totally different project, and carries that pspective with him still.
“The film was striking. It didn’t pull its punches and it was true to what it wanted to do.,” Anderson says. “We didn’t have a huge amount of time to cut trailers and do posters and do a very elaborate campaign, but over time people found the movie. It’s been a wonderful experience to see the audience for it grow.”
Since 1997, Event Horizon has steadily accumulated fans through home media. Set in 2047, the thriller movie follows a rescue mission tot he eponymous ship, after it mysteriously disappears then reappears several years later. On board is a new kind of engine that can create wormholes, and the salvage team gradually find out the crew didn’t visit anywhere good.
Sam Neill, Jason Isaacs, and Laurence Fishburne star, and though the film as we see it is great, some fans long for a lost cut that was much gorier. Scenes were shot, but have since been lost to time, preventing us from getting a director’s cut.
It’s a shame, but at least we have Event Horizon on 4K now. Check out our list of the best alien movies if this has you pondering the stars above.