Here are the Event Horizon alternate endings explained and why they weren't used. Paul W. S. Anderson scored a major success with his 1995 adaptation of the video game Mortal Kombat but ed on returning for a sequel so he could focus on making an R-rated movie. He selected the script for Event Horizon, which sees a deep space rescue team explore the titular ship. The Event Horizon was an experimental craft that could travel to any point in space, but after disappearing for seven years, the crew discovered it brought back something hellish.
Event Horizon was intended to be a major blockbuster overseen by Paramount. Unfortunately for the studio, they hadn't figured on Anderson's dark, blood-soaked vision for the film, which had been put together quickly to fill a slot left by the delay of James Cameron's Titanic. This meant Anderson was largely left alone making Event Horizon, and his original cut for the movie was famously extremely brutal and gory. After several walkouts during a test screening, the studio demanded much of the bloodshed be removed, but the movie was ultimately a financial letdown.
Despite this, Event Horizon found a cult following in the years following its original release. It's certainly Paul W.S. Anderson's best movie, and while fans would love to see a director's cut, the footage to put one together no longer exists. There were two alternate endings to Event Horizon, and while neither radically alter the movie, they are intriguing in their own way. Here are the Event Horizon alternate endings explained.
The Burning Man Ending
Event Horizon's "Burning Man" finale is essentially a different version of the current showdown. In the final iteration of the Hell in space movie, Laurence Fishburne's Captain Miller is left trapped in the ship's gravity drive room, while the demonic Weir (Sam Neill) taunts him with visions of his crew being ripped apart in Hell.
In the Event Horizon alternate endings, one of them sees Weir's place taken over by Corrick, a crew member from one of Miller's previous missions who he had to abandon. Corrick burned to death, and Miller is haunted throughout by visions of the burning man. In this ending, Miller was coming face to (burning) face with his biggest regret, and Corrick served as the final antagonist for the Captain to overcome. It turns out that test audiences preferred the Weir-centric version, which led to the use of that finale.
The Screaming Ship Ending
Event Horizon, Hellraiser's intergalactic equivalent, ends on an ambiguous note, with survivors Starck and Cooper being picked up by a rescue team. Nonetheless, Starck hallucinates Weir as one of the rescuers, and a door closes by itself, implying sinister forces are still part of the Event Horizon ship. Either way, it appears Starck will remain haunted by her experiences on the ship.
The Event Horizon alternate endings see another variation, though it arguably would have been creepier. Instead of a vision of Weir, Event Horizon's scripted ending saw Starck assailed by screams from the deceased crew of the ship, with hands reaching over her body — which turns out to be the rescue team. Cooper also comes to comfort her, but again, the implication is that the trauma will linger with her for a long time.
Would The Event Horizon Alternate Endings Have Improved The Movie?
Based on Event Horizon's infamous scrapped "blood orgy" was completely gratuitous. The second alternate ending retains its ambiguity but would've been far more psychologically troubling. Plus, it could have prevented the "it was all a dream" moment that undercuts the conclusion in the Event Horizon final cut (even though the door in the theatrical cut closes unprompted, implying that the ship is still sentient and possibly malicious). Having the ending as a possible hallucination rather than a dream lends itself more to the theme of Starck's trauma and makes the continued hellish possession of the ship simultaneously less certain and more implied – the movie lost a smarter denouement in this alternative.
