Space: the final frontier ... to die

Every few Double Feartures, we venture into space. There is also a bit of horror lurking there and because, as we all know, no one there hears you scream, it is particularly frightening. PANDORUM and EVENT HORIZON not only go together thematically, but also form an unofficial Paul W.S. Anderson special.

With the German-British production PANDORUM (2009), we start antichronologically. Sci-fi horror shot at the Babelsberg Film Studios under the direction of German director Christian Alvart and co-produced by Paul W.S. Anderson — that is a rarity. The two astronauts Bower (Ben Foster) and Payton (Dennis Quaid) wake up from deep sleep aboard the “Elysium”, suffer from amnesia, lack of colleagues and antisocial mutant beings. The deeper they get into the spaceship, the darker the secrets become and the greater the madness.

Speaking of madness: EVENT HORIZON (1997) is the best film by Paul W.S. Anderson so far and anyone who disagrees is welcome to submit their scientifically proven thesis in writing via e-mail. We will then publish them in the next newsletter. However, anyone who has good taste will certainly share the same opinion. The spaceship “Event Horizon” disappears on its first flight and suddenly reappears unexpectedly. So a rescue mission is sent off, which finds one thing in particular aboard the “Event Horizon”: unimaginable terror! Superbly cast with Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill, the film is actually only missing one thing: over thirty minutes of footage, which was cut against Anderson's will by Paramount Pictures and is (seemingly) lost forever. Cheeky, that kind of thing.