event horizon

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i gotta learn to let things go sometimes.  i saw event horizon almost 20 years ago, and it has haunted me ever since.  off and on, not every day.  i am not a psycho.  i mean, i am a psycho, but that is not the point.  the point is that i always felt that this movie had defeated me in some way, and since i am a sore loser, it bothered me.  wait, let me back up for a second and give you some context.

this was back near the end of my time in college.  i was all burned out, my classes were hard, and i was working way too many hours.  also, at the time, i had my day shifted so i would basically get up at 2 or 3 in the morning--it was part of my brilliant plan to have peace and quiet for doing homework or whatever--except, i also vaguely remember that i would usually not stumble home until after 10 or 12 at night, so no wonder about all the hallucinations.  have you ever been chased through the dark by your imagination?  do not answer that, i cannot hear you.

anyway.  i do not watch a lot of horror movies, and for good reason.  my sleep-deprived imagination would latch onto anything even remotely scary and just put that shit on repeat.  when i watched blair witch project, i made the mistake of doing so by myself, late at night, in a theater that i had to drive home from.  i was halfway home, driving on a narrow, unlit street, when i suddenly realized the significance of the final scene.  oh god, i thought, he was STANDING IN THE CORNER.  it is a wonder i did not plow into a parked car, what with my sudden panic attack, combined with an equally sudden conviction that the blair witch was IN MY BACK SEAT, AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY.  i "slept" with the lights on that night, and i did not bother trying to sleep for a few days after that.  when i was at work the following night, not bothering to sleep, i was convinced that the blair witch was behind me, though what she was doing in the rack with the licensing servers was not something my brain had an explanation for.  i kept checking anyway.  there was another time when my so-called friend convinced me to go see the exorcist, and that was even worse.  i slept with the lights on for a week, and on at least a couple occasions, i woke up, hallucinating that that fucking little girl was spider-walking at me from around the corner of the kitchen island thing.

um.  anyway.  so, against this backdrop, we have an opportunity to watch a "science fiction" movie called event horizon.  now, see, when i procured it, i was not aware that it was a sci-fi/HORROR movie.  had i only known, i could have walked away.  however, once i had it, i had to watch it.  if that sounds wrong, then screw you, completionists are people too.

event horizon took me three sittings to watch, and i watched most of it by playing the movie in one window while i did something else in another window.  fucking self-mutilation, man.  it really gets to me.  when i finally finished it, i felt relief, because mission accomplished, but i also felt defeat.  fast-forward to a couple weeks ago, when somebody who absolutely did not know what they were talking about wrote that event horizon, though panned by critics and viewers alike, had some kind of staying power and was much better on a second viewing.

i knew it was a trap, i knew they were full of shit, i knew i was going to hate myself, and i knew i was going to watch it again.  goddammit why am i so predictable.  my friends and loved ones were very supportive--except my asshole dog, who just wanted food and belly rubs--and every single one of them said i should forget about the movie.  just take it out of your queue, you do not have to watch it.  why would you do that.  you know you will not like it.  you know you will regret it forever.

well, i DID take it out of my queue.  then i was home alone and could not stop thinking about it and i looked it up and watched it anyway.  and that is how i got closure.

event horizon gets one black hole to hell.  it was no better the second time around and anybody who suggests otherwise is an idiot.  honourable mention to sam neill for being legitimately creepy, at least so far as i could tell from between my fingers, before the part where the mutilations started.