Checking Event Horizon

In November 2014, most of us were busy watching Interstellar, and showering praises on the movie like no other. Yes, I have given the movie a very positive opinion too, but what that it brought me was a return to the past, to another movie which I watched years ago. It was not Pandorum, even though it had the protagonists going to populate another planet a long way away from Earth. It was Event Horizon, one of my favourite science fiction horror movies of all times, and undoubtedly the best of space horror.

Released in 1997, I would like to believe that this movie was far ahead of the audience (and also the confused critics) of that time, and that should be the major reason why it wasn’t a hit or could go on to become a much talked about movie at that time despite its interesting ideas. It is in my long list of favourite space movies along with Pandorum which I mentioned earlier. This movie is also supposed to have inspired the video game series Dead Space, up-to an extent, and that is one of the most impressive scary atmospheres ever in a video game based on space.

Event Horizon: There is more to the spaceship that you can find with your naked eyes.

With the last game of that franchise released in 2013 as Dead Space 3, what we should have is a sequel to Event Horizon. Why I am highly in support of the same is because of its idea – it is the story of a spaceship known as Event Horizon which possessed a special, experimental gravity drive in its core. The special ability was that it could generate an artificial black hole and use its extreme gravitational power to bring two points in space-time together, highly decreasing the time taken for the ship to travel through great distances.

The result of the journey of this ship is that it doesn’t just go where it was intended to go. It travels to more than just one star. It travels to another dimension, something of pure, unadulterated chaos belonging to spiritual and physical annihilation of the worst kind. There is the message given “liberate tuteme ex inferis” (save yourself from hell), but this journey to another dimension which can be equated with inferno or hell means only one thing – death and destruction; that brings another Faustian situation here – something not limited to personal devastation.

Pandorum is not far behind in this idea and the horror of deep space. As I had watched Event Horizon as well as Pandorum, Interstellar had a much lesser effect on me. A number of ideas were already there with me, along with the different worlds of the game, Mass Effect. The existence of the humanoids go back to my thoughts about Prometheus, and for me, Interstellar was more of a combination of all these movies and games with the addition of a few unnecessary things, but still enjoyable as the space movie.

Pandorum: As Earth finishes its time, you have to travel to another planet, but how easy is it?

The idea of how wormholes work, the existence of other advanced humanoids in the outer space, the exploration of other worlds, the astronaut who lose the mind after staying alone in hostile atmosphere for too long, the arriving end of our planet, the properties of another planet or world – none of this is new to me, and therefore considering Interstellar as one of its kind (as I have found on some forums) is lame. Interstellar has something or the other common with the lesser successful movies and video games, and therefore the innovation needed was so less.

As Event Horizon is a masterpiece in space horror, Interstellar has managed to be the same in something else; it is like a pure science lesson which is less applicable to everyone – the skill is in adding a lot of unnecessary science classes to the work and making it less interesting for the common man. Before you watch Interstellar, you need to watch Event Horizon, Pandorum and Prometheus, plus play the two video games, Mass Effect and Dead Space. Thus you can have some Interstellar before having that flick, or rather end up watching a highly indirect prequel to it.

***The images used on this blog post are screenshots from the movies Event Horizon and Pandorum.

TeNy

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In Search of a Soul

Based on the graphic novel by Kevin Grevioux, the movie I, Frankenstein continues the journey of the monster which was created in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. It does tell something about the background story which can be seen as a small introduction. The book has been among my favourite horror stories of all time, having an opportunity to read it during my childhood. Along with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, there was something about this novel which came second in my list at that time. So, a continuation of the tale of this monster was going to be intriguing.

The question about how good the movie is, might bring some discussions, but the major question about this work is not about its quality, but about one thing – the soul. It has Aaron Eckhart as the Frankenstein’s monster which wanders around the world we know without a soul. He has survived all the changes that the world had undergone and spends his time in loneliness. But he gets caught in a battle between the gargoyles appointed by the Archangels and the demons who are hoping to take over Earth.

✠ Know the Frankenstein Monster, the man in search of a soul in the land of vainglory. He is Adam Frankenstein, the first monster created on Earth, the demonic paradise.

The soulless monster, Adam Frankenstein (Photo from movie’s FB page)

The soulless creature becomes the centre of attraction because the demon Naberius, one of the original fallen angels, plan to use the procedure which was used to create this monster to re-animate a number of corpses without souls and use them as containers for the souls of millions in hell, unleashing an army of demons which will finally be able to walk on Earth and cause chaos. You remember the plan which was brought by Mammon and Balthazar in the movie Constantine and by Blackheart and his minions in the movie Ghost Rider.

It was quite easy to identify that the creature made my re-animating a dead body had no soul. But the interesting thing is that by his good deeds, he finally does grow a soul. Still, the question remains about the people of our present world. Do they have a soul? A conscience which makes them do good unconditionally in a world dominated by money where only the winners have honour and approval forcing one to shed goodness? The fact that a monster gained the same in a movie might not be consoling for many, as most of the current world lacks the abilitiy to be the container of a good soul.

Our monster does kill the wife of his creator in a few moments of anger and frustration, but the new generation does much worse. Their brutality to the people around them is not just related to some murder, but in their daily words and action as part of a long procedure which they consistently force upon their own species without any remorse. It is more like a river of anger and hatred flowing without restrictions on a monsoon. The anger at Maria Sharapova has subsided, but we do see a lot more every day, and the reality is much worse outside.

The creature was closer to the dead than the living, caught between two dimensions, of life and death, and yet manages to find life and the humanity worth his time and care. It was a creature without identity, and no conscience at all, until it became the “he”, changing his ideas about himself to more of a common hope for salvation, becoming part of all that he has known, from gargoyles to humans. He is still the equivalent of what we would call a zombie, but like in the movie Warm Bodies, he has something in him, and here it is more than just a heartbeat and a brain.

The beauty & the beast one step closer to the soul (Photo from movie’s FB page)

Our creature understands his higher purpose and elevates himself to something beyond the selfishness that he had earlier gathered. He understands that despite what he has gone through, it is not in his power to deny God’s will or to deny himself his own right to do good, as he himself was created by a creation of God, thus becoming God’s own, in an indirect manner. He is thus Adam, the first of his kind, and unique, yet part of the universe and its plans. As they say in the movie “You’re only a monster if you behave like one” – so do most of the humans of our time deserve a soul more than a monster?

TeNy