As an actor, some of your most memorable moments come from the many deaths you suffer on the stage or screen. For Jason Issacs, one such memory involves a particularly gory death from the cult classic Event Horizon, in which his character of D.J. is gutted and strung up over an operating table.
It was a scene so absolutely bloody that not only is it one of the notable deaths in the entire film, Issacs wanted to keep the replica of his own dead body! Submitted for your approval, the story below:
Leave it to the man who would later play Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise to come up with such a diabolical decorating plan. As if keeping a lifelike replica of yourself ripped open and bloodied up wasn’t chilling enough, hoisting it over the dinner table would be one hell of a conversation starter.
The short version of how Event Horizon dealt Issacs’ character into the great beyond is that even his position as the ship’s medic couldn’t protect him from the villainous Dr. Weir, played by Jurassic Park vet/fellow professional baddie Sam Neill.
As the hellish influence upon the derelict ship is in full swing at this point, Weir gets creative with his prey. Which means that D.J. is going to have some severely un-elective surgery executed on his person. While we can talk around the details all day, it’s undoubtedly a more visual experience, and we’ve got the footage for you below.
Note that there’s a fantastic shot of the prop around 02:21, but if you’re a big Jason Issacs fan, you can start watching the clip below as of 00:49 to get the full effect.
Admittedly, the scene behind this prop isn’t even the most traumatic for those who have watched or will embark upon watching Event Horizon, as this is a movie that included a scene merely referred to as “the blood orgy.” It’s part of how director Paul W.S. Anderson earned his horror chops, which would only grow with his origination of the Resident Evil franchise years down the line.
It’s also through commentary by Anderson on the Event Horizon DVD that tells a slightly different story about Jason Issacs’ request to obtain his prop corpse. Thanks to the internet, this information is also available for your perusal, along with some alternate shots of poor D.J.’s display in the medical bay. See for yourself below.
As Event Horizon just celebrated its 22nd anniversary, and the film has been recently announced as an Amazon series in development, Jason Issacs’ tweet remembering this odyssey into the depths of space and the bowls of Hell comes at the perfect time. While it was released to theaters as a box office bomb, the film did eventually gain a following on cable and home video among genre fans.
It was a long, but fruitful road for Event Horizon into the hearts of its fans, and it’s unfortunate that Issacs couldn’t commemorate that experience by showing his dinner guests where the replica of his own heart would lie in his prop body. Amazon, you may want to include some language in the contracts of your cast to stave off any upset in your new series’ cast ahead of time.