While Event Horizon was eventually reclaimed by audiences years after its initial failure, its 2009 semi-sequel Pandorum remains shamefully underrated. Event Horizon has become infamous for its missing footage, where intense scenes of gore were stripped out after reports of Paramount executives fainting during a test screening.
The biggest trim was to Event Horizon’s “blood orgy” sequence, which depicted the horrifying fate of the titular ship’s crew. Even without the missing footage, this Paul W.S. Anderson film is a visceral, creepy sci-fi horror ride. Sadly, audiences weren’t in the mood for it in 1997, with Event Horizon grossing only $26 million on a $60 million budget (via The Numbers).
Thanks to VHS, DVD and home viewings, the film built up a loyal following and is now acknowledged as a superior slice of big-budget horror. Given its financial failure, the odds of Event Horizon 2 were always slim, but in 2009, key members of the movie made a spiritual follow-up with Pandorum.
Event Horizon’s Spiritual Successor Pandorum Deserved Way Better In 2009
This sci-fi chiller takes place on the spaceship Elysium, which is essentially a sci-fi Noah’s Ark bringing colonists to a new, Earth-like planet. The story follows crew members Bower (Ben Foster) and Payton (Dennis Quaid) as they awaken from hypersleep to find cannibalistic creatures have overtaken the ship.
Pandorum’s plot is surprisingly twisty and deep, so it’s best left unspoiled outside this early setup. The film was produced by Event Horizon’s director and producer duo, Paul WS Anderson and Jeremy Bolt, and even a glance at its production design and themes reveals the kinship between the two movies.
Pandorum is a creepy, dingy sci-fi tale with a lot of cool concepts and two great leads in Foster and Quaid. It has a solid supporting cast too (including Norman Reedus as an ill-fated crew member shortly before his Walking Dead breakout) and while the editing gets too frantic during the action, the film practically overdelivers on genre expectations.
That’s why it’s such a bummer that it did so poorly. Pandorum stands at 26% on Rotten Tomatoes and made just over $20 million worldwide. It came and went at the time, but in the years since, it’s slooooowly gathered a fanbase.
Sure, it’s janky in places and the editing needed finessing, but it in no way deserved to tank during release. That’s something it obviously shares in common with Event Horizon, with both arriving at the wrong time and suffering from poor marketing campaigns that failed to properly sell their tones.
Pandorum Shares Many Ties To Event Horizon
Pandorum isn’t an official sequel to Event Horizon, but it won’t be a surprise to learn they’re set in the same world. The Event Horizon and the Elysium ships are similar in terms of production design, particularly with their cryo pods.
Perhaps the failure of the Event Horizon’s faster-than-light gravity drive is what forced humanity to focus on creating a ship that could instead travel over 100 years into deep space. The main connection between the two is Anderson as producer, but the movies also dig into the same themes.
While Pandorum is missing any supernatural element (no, they don’t go to Hell in this one), both films feature a key character descending into madness toward the end of the story. Both play into the terrifying vastness and isolation of space, as their experimental ships are sent to perform feats mankind has never attempted before.
Pandorum and Event Horizon aren’t shy with the gore either, though the latter takes home the gold in that area. The 2009 film is the more action-packed outing too, and shares more in common with Anderson’s Resident Evil in terms of its characters fighting off bloodthirsty creatures.
Pandorum Is The Closest Thing To Event Horizon 2 That Fans Are Going To Get
Event Horizon received a comic prequel in 2025 dubbed Dark Descent, detailing what happened to the original crew. While there was once talk of Adam Wingard helming a TV adaptation of Event Horizon, this has been trapped in development hell since 2019.
Despite its popularity amongst horror devotees, Event Horizon is very much a cult property. There’s a reason it has yet to receive any live-action sequels or prequels, and there’s a good chance it never will. That said, Pandorum is the closest thing to a follow-up that fans can expect.
The duo shares a lot of DNA in terms of theme, story and tone, and Pandorum could be seen as a companion piece. There really aren’t that many great, psychological horror outings set in space to start with, outside the likes of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine. That makes Event Horizon and Pandorum a unique duology.
Besides, there’s little chance a direct Event Horizon sequel could live up to the original. The unanswered questions it leaves behind are best left ambiguous, and outside the missing footage being rediscovered and a proper director’s cut being assembled, the original is best left untouched.
On that score, it would be nice to see Pandorum get a similar rediscovery. It’s a grungy, inventive little gem anchored by the equally underrated Ben Foster, and deserves its spot on any list of undersung sci-fi horror efforts.
Source: The Numbers, Rotten Tomatoes
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