Damnation Double Feature: Event Horizon (1997) & In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

I've been re-reading the Mothership TTRPG recently. I want to run a Halloween one-shot and thought that this particular sci-fi horror system would be the perfect fit. So, I started thinking about the media that inspires my games.

As much as I love the Alien franchise (and I REALLY love it, warts and all), one space-horror movie influenced me even more: Event Horizon.

Directed by Paul Anderson in 1997, right after Mortal Kombat and before his descent into interminable Resident Evil sequels, this film remains a masterpiece for me. (Beware, spoilers below!)

It follows a rescue crew dispatched to investigate the Event Horizon, a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier on its maiden voyage and has mysteriously reappeared in orbit around Neptune. Upon boarding the abandoned ship, the rescuers discover that its experimental drive tore a hole in the spacetime continuum. The ship passed through a hellish dimension and brought back a malevolent entity. The crew is subjected to horrific hallucinations of their worst fears and regrets as the possessed ship attempts to return to the nightmare dimension with them aboard. What follows is a desperate battle for their lives and sanity.

The movie is set in 2047. That seemed so distant 29 years ago. I look at it now and think, "We'll never be traveling across the solar system in 21 years!"

This movie is incredibly dark, and supposedly, the original cut was even darker. It is very Lovecraftian and has influenced, directly and indirectly, so much of my sci-fi and horror gaming. It perfectly balances body horror with dark, psychological, unknowable terrors.

While Alien, Aliens, and their sequels rely on the xenomorph and a mythology about extraterrestrial life that is certainly unsettling, Event Horizon uses the trappings of sci-fi to tell a genuinely terrifying supernatural story: the ship folds space and travels through other dimensions, passing through what is apparently hell itself. I like the subversion of expectation, and how the characters find the reality they take for granted completely dismantled by the unknown.

This is exactly the style of horror I enjoy and try to reproduce at my own table. While I have never attempted to run a plot identical to the movie, many of its elements have bled into my campaigns, whether it's for a dedicated horror setting or just injecting some terrifying elements into other genres.

This movie makes a perfect double feature with a film that came out three years earlier, in 1994, starring the same lead actor, Sam Neill: In the Mouth of Madness. (More spoilers below!)

In the Mouth of Madness follows a cynical insurance investigator hired to track down a hugely popular horror author (not Stephen King! 😉) who completely vanished right before turning in his highly anticipated final manuscript. He follows the clues to a creepy New England town that was supposed to be entirely fictional, only to realize the author's Lovecraftian nightmares are bleeding into reality and driving people insane. Things spiral out of control in a wild, mind-bending climax where the investigator realizes he's just a character in the author's book, powerless to stop ancient monsters from ending the world.

When I first saw this, I had been playing Call of Cthulhu (CoC) for about six years and reading Mythos-related literature the whole time. There were certainly a lot of B-movies in the vein of CoC back then, but for me, this John Carpenter film was the best Lovecraftian movie I had ever seen. The darkness, the unraveling of reality, and the growing surreal elements all came together to create what I still consider a masterpiece. The inevitable end-of-the-world conclusion has inspired more than one of my horror one-shots over the years.

Running a game based on the movie's exact plot would be tricky because the ending requires players to surrender their agency. However, elements of unreality—the fictitious blending with reality—are great tools that Game Masters—and even players—can use to enhance the horror experience.

Event Horizon, In the Mouth of Madness, and Phantasmagoria inspired a horror campaign I want to run, set on a mysterious offshore island where players face the unexpected and monstrous, both in the world and within themselves. I struggled to organize my plans, but when Apple TV's Window's Bay hit, I was convinced my campaign was nigh. These two movies were the major influence—not for their specific plot details, but for the dread and psychological emotions they elicit.

I watched both movies in theaters when they came out; they were heavily influential to my games then and still are today. If you want two movies to inspire your horror games, sci-fi or otherwise, you truly must watch these. I highly recommend them!