6. Event Horizon (1997)
I was in a band attempting to live the rock star dream when this movie came out. What I was unaware of at the time was that being a rock star means spending loads of time in hotel rooms not doing much at all apart from waiting for a phone call. We were recording our album in London and were given a day off. I went off to the Forbidden Planet megastore, which was on Tottenham Court Road back then, and bought myself a set of Donald Goines crime novels to help fill my time, whilst my room mate, Christian, went to the Odeon in Leicester Square to watch Event Horizon. He rang me, freaking out, a couple of hours later. He had been under the impression that the movie was going to be a gentle hour and a half of Star Trek type fare. Instead he got what he described as: "Hellraiser in space. It's horrific, Basil, and it's going to give me nightmares for ages." That was recommendation enough for me and I zipped over to catch an evening showing. I loved it! This film owes a lot to Ridley Scott's Alien, but it takes that template and then skews off into a completely different, and pretty creepy, direction. The impressive cast, Laurence Fishburne especially, sells the notion that there is some very scary stuff going on, and Sam Neill is more than convincing as his character gleefully rides the downward spiral into madness. It's odd that a director who was able to make a movie as accomplished as Event Horizon hasn't gone on to create anything of any worth since. Indeed he even managed to make a mess of 2011's The Three Musketeers. For a director who prides himself on making populist movies, it's ironic that everyone tries to avoid anything with which his name is associated. Everyone was very wrong on this one though. Event Horizon is a very good horror movie. Oh, and see if you can spot an uncredited performance by Teresa May, an adult film star who who went on to star in such titles as Teresa Takes 10 Inches, Horny Housewives on the Job and The Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up music video.