- Title: The Black Hole
- IMDb: link
Conceived out of Disney’s attempts to crack the popular disaster film genre of the time, while incorporating space elements as well, 1979’s The Black Hole became Disney’s first PG film as it followed the crew of the USS Palomino (Robert Forster, Ernest Borgnine, Yvette Mimieux, and Joseph Bottoms) who encounter the long-lost USS Cygnus anchored in the wake of a gigantic black hole.
Disney’s first horror film, the crew discover the ship mostly abandoned except for its lead scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell) and his collection of robots and androids. However, further investigation into Reinhardt leads to the truth about the crew’s fate in a surprisingly dark reveal for a Disney film.
While some aspects of the film simply don’t work (such as the ESP between Mimieux’s character and one of the robots as a sort of deux machina to explain events across the massive ship), the mystery on the edge of space and the film’s haunting score do hit is target genre giving a first glimpse to audiences what Disney horror could look like.
Having seen the film as a child, the robots were always the most memorable aspects of The Black Hole to me. We get our heroic V.I.N.CENT. LF-396 (Roddy McDowall), Reinhardt’s more beat-up model Old BO.B. LF-28 (Slim Pickens), and, of course, Reinhardt’s far more sinister head of security Maximilian.
A Disney horror film starring the likes of Forster, Perkins, and Borgnine feels as odd today as it did in 1979. Despite it’s record opening for a Disney film at the time, The Black Hole received mixed response from both critics and audiences, but did get nominated for two Oscars for cinematography and visual effects. The film has been released on home video several times over the years and is currently available to stream on Disney+. Although attempts at a remake have failed, you do see very similar aspects explored in films like Sunshine and Event Horizon.
