7. Event Horizon (1997)
It might seem strange to suggest that a movie directed by hack director Paul W.S. Anderson tried
too hard, because - if there's one thing we've learned about Paul W.S. Anderson over the course of his career - he's a man who rarely tries to achieve anything but a "bog standard filmic experience." And yet here, with his third movie, Event Horizon, it genuinely feels like the man tried hard to make a great movie - to the point where the film becomes so mind-numbingly terrible in his attempts. Who'd have guessed that less work would have resulted in a better flick? The movie begins with a intriguing premise: a futuristic spacecraft called the "Event Horizon" has suddenly remerged years after it vanished. Another ship is sent to find out what happened. Visually, Anderson totally succeeds here - well, at first. I mean, the movie looks like Prometheus. And yet, after a promising start, Anderson goes nuts: he edits his movie (and the plot) into incomprehension in an ill-judged attempt to find meaning, throwing religious symbolism around for no reason. For somebody who tried so hard, he comes up embarrassingly short.