Warning Spoilers ahead
It isn’t often that a movie comes along that is so horrifying, that the studio demands content to be cut then destroyed forever. This was the fate of Event Horizon, a movie so gory and nightmarish that much of the content was trimmed down from the final product. Some of the recovered lost footage has been seen and is truly disturbing visually, so I feel this is a rare case where the studio made the right move.
How to describe Event Horizon? It is a film set in space aboard a derelict vessel that a crew comes across and turns out to be haunted. It sounds simple enough, but the film shows no limits in terror. The horrors lurking in hyperspace and beyond were some of the most terrifying imagery I have ever seen. I am not giving a full synopsis because I do not want to ruin any part of the film for anyone. I do want to say that it isn’t for the faint of heart, and is one of the most intense horror films ever.
All that being said, I want to discuss something else about the movie. Many fans of Warhammer 40 000 have the opinion that Event Horizon is the best unofficial Warhammer 40 000 movie out there, and this works perfectly. In Warhammer 40 000, there is the Warp, a nightmarish zone of daemons who will tear ships apart and slaughter the crew if they accidentally get pulled in. Warp travel is needed to go faster than light for spaceships and the way to travel through the warp is through the protection of a Gellar Field and with the aid of a special navigator. Many view this as a prequel film, depicting humanity discovering the warp and much of it lines up, albeit unintentionally. The evil presences in the ship resemble Chaos forces, and writing appears that is very similar to Chaos runes.
The entity(ies) encountered could very well be the daemons or chaos affected beings of the warp who then corrupt humans. The nature of possession and the way the warp interacts with humans syncs up perfectly with the depictions in the film, and given the natures of some of the deleted scenes and what is known about them, the actions perpetuated actually fit the domain of one of the Chaos gods perfectly, that being Slaanesh. Slaanesh is the god(des) of pleasure, pain, excess, and hedonism, and the nature of their presence affects people the way the entities in the film are depicted doing so. There are other hints of course, such as one symbol ( on the gravity drive) being very close to the eight-pointed star of chaos.
The machines on the ship also show signs of possession and corruption, and that is also present in Warhammer 40 000. A scene where the machines activate also triggers widespread activity where accidents happen but also people get affected on a mental level, being taunted by visions for instance. Those the ship does not taunt are instead affected in other ways, and many are influenced to start turning on each other, with their composure broken and proving ready to turn on each other. They rationalize their behavior and it suddenly makes sense for them to act this way in their own minds One character may have actually been thrown into what is essentially the warp and talks of horrors and the things he has seen. Two characters were targeted by the ship in such specific ways that show the insidious way chaos is known to corrupt humans, with one character actually becoming fully corrupted and becomes the equivalent of a Chaos Cultist.
And even more interesting is that the timeframe of the film would perfectly line up with the timeline of the Warhammer 40 000 series and when humanity would have started to explore and discover the warp. This isn’t to mention the architecture and other technogothic imagery that will seem very familiar to fans of the franchise. This all being said however, I admit that this probably wasn’t the filmmaker’s intentions, but it makes the film work so much better in my opinion. Event Horizon is terrifying either way, but this just makes me appreciate the film more and I would like to think the director and writers were maybe paying homage in some way to the franchise.
What do you think? Do you agree with the theory, or do you feel it is farfetched? Let us know your thoughts.