The Untold Truth Of Event Horizon

Anderson would need a veteran of genre films to effectively shoot his bizarre sets, and he got one in Adrian Biddle, who'd shot such instantly iconic films as Aliens, The Princess Bride, and Thelma & Louise. Biddle immediately understood what Anderson was going for, and with the help of the director and production designer Joseph Bennett, he carefully selected a lighting scheme that would make the Event Horizon appear appropriately futuristic and sterile in cold artificial light ... and take on a whole new personality when bathed in dim light and darkness.

Anderson recalled his DP's contribution in a 2020 chat with American Cinematographer magazine. "We spent a lot of time coming up with a design concept, which we called 'techno-medieval,'" he said. "When the lights are on, everything looks very technological and very spaceship-like. But when the lights go off and the haunting begins, you start looking at the shapes, and the architecture is actually very medieval. We extended that techno-medieval design idea into as many aspects of the picture's look as possible, without rubbing the audience's nose in it."

Biddle opted to use colored gels to augment the film's lighting, a time-honored technique that had fallen out of favor to further heighten the film's sense of unease. "I used some sepia brown coming up from the floor to make viewers uncomfortable on the ship, as well as flashes of red. I also used a lot of green," he remembered. "Cinematographers generally shy away from green, because it's not very pleasant, but on Event Horizon I used gels to produce that nasty, horrible green you get from fluorescents. ... I was going for that kind of an effect, to convey the idea that something not very good is lurking in the ship."