Paul W.S. Anderson's 1997 Event Horizon

This is Dissect the Direct.

This podcast contains spoilers galore, words that end in uck and unt, and descriptions of scenes of violence which are hellish, figuratively and literally.

At first glance, tonight's specimen could be another story about a rescue mission in space.

A missing ship, a reluctant crew, long industrial corridors with flickering lights, and a creepy sense that something is terribly wrong.

The DNA of Ridley Scott's Alien runs through every character, act and subplot.

Just like Alien, the terror comes not only from what lurks in the darkness, but from isolation, claustrophobia and the horrifying realisation that help is impossibly far away.

But where Alien looked outwards into the cold vacuum of space, our specimen looks inwards and suggests the greatest horror of all isn't an Exomorph, but the human soul.

And at the centre of all of this is Dr Weir, played by Sir Samuel Neill, who passed shortly after we chose this story for tonight's episode.

Few actors possessed his ability to project warmth, intelligence and trust, qualities that make Dr Weir's transformation all the more unsettling, because this story asks you to trust him, right up until it definitely doesn't.

Real-life horror comes from guilt, regret and the memories we bury.

The spaceship itself doesn't simply carry its crew across unimaginable, unimaginable distances.

It forces them to confront the darkest corners of their own minds, because no matter how advanced our technology or how far we travel with it, there's one terrifying thing that we can never ever get away from ourselves.

With a runtime of 96 minutes, the real on the cold marble slab tonight might as well be called Hellraiser in space.

It's Paul Anderson's 1997 science fiction horror, Event Horizon.