Event Horizon and Alien feel as if they exist in the same universe, and filmmakers for Event Horizon acknowledge Alien's influence on the film.
When Alien was released in 1979, it introduced audiences to a new kind of sci-fi, one with gritty realism and clear elements of horror. Ridley Scott's vision for the future was an unforgiving world, prefaced with the original movie poster's tagline: "In space, no one can hear you scream." Over the years, the film has been lauded for a number of different reasons, one of them being the fact that despite its science fiction setting, Alien is more of a horror movie than anything else. This fact was not wasted on writer, Philip Eisner, and director, Paul W. S. Anderson, who were clearly influenced by Ridley Scott's masterpiece when they made Event Horizon almost 20 years later in 1997.
Similar to Alien, Event Horizon is a science fiction movie about an isolated crew on a ship in deep space, borrowing horror elements not only from Ridley Scott but also Clive Barker's Hellraiser, and even The Shining. It too included a tagline that highlighted the film's horror elements: "Infinite space, infinite terror." But the similarities between the two movies runs deeper than that, sliding from homage and into copycat territory. Nevertheless, a lot of Event Horizon's appeal comes from what it borrows from other movies, especially Alien.
What Event Horizon Took From Alien
For starters, Event Horizon, soon to be a television series on Amazon, contains entire shots lifted from Alien and a number of production similarities. For example, the gravity drive is remarkably similar in style and presentation as the "space jockey" set piece. Additionally, the film uses something very similar to the Alien derelict's laser net that covers and contains the eggs in stasis. The cinematographer for Event Horizon, Adrian Biddle, actually started out as the focus puller for Alien, which might explain some of these similarities. However, they don't stop there.
Jolie Richardson’s character in Event Horizon was originally a man that was retooled so that she could play the role, which is almost exactly how Sigourney Weaver came to play Ripley in Alien. On top of that, there's no mistaking the similarities between the ships, the Nostromo and the Event Horizon, respectively. Ridley Scott originally designed the Nostromo to look like an inverted cathedral or a Gothic castle. Similarly, models designer David Sharpe literally scanned elements of the Notre Dame Cathedral for use on the design of the Event Horizon. Event Horizon's director Paul W.S. Anderson himself even admits it. Upon further viewing, it's obvious that the ship is not the only thing from Alien that influenced him when making Event Horizon.