Aboard the Daylight Space Station orbiting Earth, Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill) awakens suddenly from a nightmare about his dead wife, Claire (Holley Chant). Weir, a brilliant but troubled scientist, has been haunted for years by his wife' suicide and the disappearance of the The Event Horizon, a prototype spaceship, designed by Weir to reach distant stars -- instead, the ship and its crew simply vanished without a trace. Now, seven years later, an automatic emergency beacon indicates that the Event Horizon has abruptly reappeared near the planet Neptune. The message has been presumably sent by someone aboard the ship.

A mission is launched to salvage the Event Horizon -- and, it is hoped, rescue any survivors of its crew. The ship assigned to the mission is the USAC (United States Aerospace Command)Lewis & Clark, a Search & Rescue Ship named for the leaders of the famed expedition that crossed North America in 1805. The Lewis & Clark has just returned from a mission, and her crew was looking forward to a well deserved leave. The order to head out toward Neptune is not welcome news-- but Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) leads a team of seasoned professionals: navigator Starck (Joely Richardson); emergency techniciansPeters (Kathleen Quinlan) and Cooper (Richard T. Jones); engineer Justin

Only when they are in deep space,however, does Weir divulge the secrets of the Event Horizon. Weir reveals that everything they have ever heard about the fate of the ship is a lie,but they are also completely unprepared for the truth. He explains that the Event Horizon was the first spaceship designed for faster-than-light travel, a concept which, they all thought, was physically and technologically impossible. The ship disappeared without a trace when the gravity drive, her revolutionary engineering process, had been engaged.Uneasiness becomes anxiety when Weir plays the brief, fragmentary recording that is the only clue to the ship's fate -- a recording of terrifying, inhuman shrieks and wails.

At last they reach the Event Horizon, an eerie, cross-shaped vessel, ominously looming against the cloudy atmosphere of Neptune. Biomonitors (used to search for signs of life) give strange, abnormal readings. The would-be rescuers board the ship, as vast and silent as a deserted cathedral. Within its snaking corridors and containment chambers, they find hints of the night marish fate that overtook its vanished crew -- and discover a horror no one ever imagined, even among the deepest reaches of outer space.