This past summer, the sci-fi/horror cult classic Event Horizon got its first official tie-in comic: Event Horizon: Dark Descent. Regular readers may have seen the sneak peek I shared back in June. As of November 2, two issues are out, with three more on the way. Are they a promising start for an Event Horizon expanded universe, breathing fresh life into an ambitious but flawed movie? Or is this project shaping up to be a blood-spattered misfire? I don’t know yet, but I have some thoughts.
Be warned: like the original movie, the comic contains graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised. Also, there will be spoilers!
Event Horizon: Dark Descent is a project of IDW Publishing, written by Christian Ward, drawn by Tristan Jones, and with coloring by Pip Martin. Set seven years before the events of the original film, it serves as a direct prequel, showing what happened to the starship Event Horizon‘s original crew when they undertook history’s first faster-than-light voyage through space. We already know that what happened to them was very, very bad. Their ship traveled not to Alpha Centauri, as intended, but to a dimension that can only be described as hell itself. The movie gives us some glimpses of their fate:
- We see a frozen corpse floating around the ship, with its face ripped to shreds and its eyes torn out.
- On the walls lies a splattering of blood, guts, and bones, covering parts of the bridge like grisly moss.
- Lastly, there is the infamous “Blood Orgy,” a video log that shows the crew’s self-destruction via rape, mutilation, and cannibalism. Eyes are gouged out. Ominous Latin words are spoken. You can watch it here, at your own risk1.
30 years later, the creators of Event Horizon: Dark Descent came along and asked: what if we had more of that? Hence, a prequel. In my June post I was skeptical of the idea; I still am. Effective horror relies on what we don’t see, just as much as what we do. To take the original work’s few horrifying, tantalizing hints, and make a five-issue comic out of them, risks watering down both comic and film.
Issue #1 sets the groundwork for the grisly expedition to come. We meet the Event Horizon‘s crew: Captain Kilpack, a devout Christian fluent in Latin; Jennifer Kwon, a quantum physicist and expert on the gravity drive; Devlin Conners, the navigator, fleeing a dark secret in his native Australia; and many others. So many others. There are 18 people aboard this ship! We also see Dr. Weir, back on Earth, reeling from his wife’s recent suicide. But already—seven years before the film, and indeed, before the Event Horizon even crosses over to the other dimension—he senses the ghostly presence of his wife (or something else…) calling to him. I’m still not totally sure how that’s supposed to work. Very surprising to see supernatural stuff happening so early, before the ship has itself become supernatural.
The first issue ends with the Event Horizon engaging its gravity drive, crossing beyond our known universe into parts unknown. At the start of the second issue, it has appeared somewhere else, and that “somewhere else” has eyes and teeth.
Bad things start happening pretty quickly. One crewman tears out his eyes, desperate to escape visions of horror and depravity. Other members of the crew start having sex with each other right there in the corridors. Also, the navigation chief, Conners, murders the communications officer in a rage, though he might have done that without any help from the hell demension. It isn’t looking like a fun time aboard the Event Horizon—and it’s about to get a whole lot worse, because Paimon, the demonic Lord of Hell, has just boarded the ship.
That’s where Issue #2 leaves off. I expect the next three issues to show plenty of carnage, because this one sure hasn’t held back. We see blood, guts, violated eye sockets, glass embedded in faces… Dark Descent isn’t pretty to look at, but it’s doing the job so far. It strikes a tone very similar to the movie. This is, without a doubt, a comic for horror buffs.
I can’t say I’m wowed by the writing here, though. There are some vague meditations about hell, but they pale in comparison to Sam Neill’s scenery-chewing speeches in the movie, and the comic’s dialogue lacks the wit that helped make the original shine. That’s not to say that the writing is bad—just mediocre. Perhaps things will pick up in the last three issues. These are, after all, early days.
My main critique is that the characters’ introductions are rushed, and we just don’t see enough of them to get invested. I still can’t get most of them straight. The first issue was a wasted opportunity in this regard—instead of fleshing out our protagonists, it focuses on Dr. Weir, who we know won’t come to any harm. Now, at the close of Issue #2, the nightmare has started and the door for introductions has mostly shut.
At least we are seeing a nightmare. Event Horizon: Dark Descent may have its flaws, but it’s still delivering the blood and guts it promised, and I’m intrigued to see more of its interpretation of the hellish dimension beyond the gravity drive. I would recommend it for any fan of the movie. You can buy the first two issues on Amazon, here and here. With luck, the next installments will stick the landing.
Thanks for reading this one, folks! Event Horizon is a cult classic, and I count myself as a priest among the cult. I’ll take any opportunity I can get to write about it. In addition to the ongoing comic series, I have a copy of the official novelization lying around, which is practically begging for a blog post…
This has been one of my many reviews of science fiction movies, TV shows, books, and comics. If you’d like to see more of my work, be sure to enter your email below and subscribe to this site. There are some exciting projects in the pipeline—I can promise that much. I will catch you guys next week!
- A neat (?) bit of movie trivia: director Paul W.S. Anderson hired genuine pornographic actors and amputees, to make the graphic sex acts and mutilation of limbs look more realistic. He shot considerably more footage than made it into the final product. After test audiences fainted in theaters, the studio insisted on cutting the Blood Orgy down to a (still horrifying) 14-second clip. ↩︎
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