Event Horizon 4K SteelBook review

Aug 05, 2022- Permalink

It’s been 25 years since the sci-fi horror movie Event Horizon was released in theatres. Without giving away anything, the story follows the crew of a rescue vessel sent to rescue the deep space exploration ship, Event Horizon, that has reappeared seven years after its disappearance near Neptune. It’s when they reach the vessel that things start to go really bad for the rescuers. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film, Paramount has released a 4K SteelBook edition and I had a chance to check it out. The film stars Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson and Richard T. Jones.

The 2160p HEVC / H.265 encoded native 4K digital transfer with Dolby Vision and HDR10 is presented in a 2.34:1 aspect ratio. The video presentation is stunning. Impressive detail is present throughout from the various ship interiors to faces, textiles and hair. The colour palette has lots of blues, grays, browns and greens and the HDR colour grading presents them with greater depth. It’s a very dark film and the black levels are deep with no loss of detail in shadows or the darkest scenes. It’s simply a beautiful transfer and the new 4K scan removes any source issues. Digital noise or compression artifacts are also absent.

On the audio side, Paramount has not remixed the soundscape to Dolby Atmos. Instead we get the previous 5.1 mix which is available in an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack as well as German, Spanish, French Italian and Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. Subtitles are available for English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. It’s a loud mix, but there are some quieter effects in the surrounds which heighten the tension. The low end gets quite a workout and your subwoofer will be sweating after screening this. Though dialogue is generally clear and well-prioritized in the mix, there are a few moments where dialogue seems thin and less prominent.

The SteelBook release has no extras on the 4K disc, but they are on the included 2008 Paramount Blu-ray release. There is also a digital code. Sadly, given the 25th anniversary, we aren’t getting any new bonus features. We do get audio commentary by director Paul W.S. Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt, a 103 minute “making of” featurette, an in-depth look at the film of some of the scenes, some deleted and extended scenes with director’s commentary, storyboards for an unshot scene, and a theatrical trailer. The SteelBook case depicts an eye reflect a circle of lights and a bloodied hand. When the plastic slipcover is placed over the SteelBook, it shows hands reaching for the centre of the image. The inside of the case depicts a still from the movie.

The 25th anniversary Event Horizon 4K SteelBook has a stunning video transfer, a solid and entertaining audio presentation, a lengthy amount of extras, and fun SteelBook case. Though it would have been nice to see some anniversary content, that’s just a quibble. Highly recommended.