10 Cosmic Horror Films To Scare You Into Oblivion

The 1997 film by Paul W. S. Anderson that raised the bar for space horror.

Starring Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill, Event Horizon tells the story of a rescue mission sent to recover the crew from the Event Horizon spaceship. The only problem? The Event Horizon has been missing for years, and has just materialised out of the blue, next to Neptune.

Event Horizon is like Hellraiser meets 2001: A Space Odyssey. The crew eventually realise that the experimental engine used to power the Event Horizon has ripped apart the fabric of space and time, sending the ship into another dimension.

The horror in this film resides in the way this other dimension is presented - the victims of its maddening tortures describe it as Hell. But this version of Hell doesn’t judge people based on their sins, and will take good souls just as readily as the wicked.

This idea is the core of Event Horizon’s cosmic horror – the terrifying truth that no matter how good a life you lead, you are still standing on the brink of an insanity-inducing realm, ready to suck you in.

The idea of an alternate dimension being represented as Hell isn’t new to the cosmic horror world. The tabletop wargame, Warhammer 40,000, was an inspiration for script writer, Philip Eisner.

In the game, spaceships can travel through a parallel dimension called The Warp – however, this dimension is infested with daemons that can infiltrate the ship and possess the crew. Fans of the game liked Event Horizon so much that many of them cite it as a prequel to the events in Warhammer.