Made in 1979 and directed by Ridley Scott, Alien is from a time when aliens were seen as being cute and cuddly. This is the film that changed all that, made a star out of Sigourney Weaver, and spawned three sequels as well as redefining the horror genre.
Answering a Transmission
The seven person crew of the Nostromo are in stasis returning from Thedus to Earth when they are awoken by a faint transmission coming from a nearby planet. They land on the planet, causing some damage to their own ship, and whilst Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), and Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) set out to investigate the signal's source, Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and Engineers Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) and Parker (Yaphet Kotto) stay behind to monitor their progress and make repairs.
Finding a derelict ship on the surface Kane ventures into a large hold and discovers what appear to be thousands of egg-like objects. Without warning something leaps from one of the eggs and attaches itself to his face. Taking him back to the Nostromo Dallas and Ash attempt to remove the creature, but discover that its blood is concentrated acid that burns through the deck, and meaning that they cannot remove the alien. The crew decide to put him into stasis and resume their course back towards Earth.
However before they can put him into stasis the alien detaches itself from Kane and dies. The crew don’t know what has happened and Kane seems none the worse for wear, so before they all go back into stasis they sit down for a meal, but for all of them the nightmare is just about to begin.
Classic Science-Fiction Horror
Back in 1979 aliens were not vicious killing machines intent on slaughtering anything that crossed their path, consequently when Alien was released audiences were completely unprepared for what they were about to see. From the moment the alien is ‘born’ in the infamous chest-bursting scene to the final confrontation between Ripley and the creature the audience is treated to a genre defining triumph of chills in which they, like the crew, expect the alien to come leaping out of any dark corner.
This was also the first real chance that audiences got to see a strong female lead, generally women are the damsels in distress, that need to be rescued by the heroic man. Here Ripley seems to be the only member of the crew who possesses the necessary will to hunt down, fight the alien and ultimately kill it. The rest of the film’s cast are on fine form as the increasingly terrified men and women trying to stay alive whilst a vicious alien is remorselessly hunting them through the corridors of their ship.
This is the film that has inspired hundreds of copies, but all of them pale in comparison to this, the original horror masterpiece. The film is available in both its original form but has been re-mastered in a director’s cut version that includes footage that wasn’t seen in the original release.
It is highly unlikely that any horror fan will not have seen this film, but if there some out there, then they need to track down a copy and witness one of the truly great masterpieces of modern cinema and the film that inspired a thousand imitations.
5/5
"In Space No-One Can Hear You Scream" Indeed
Christopher Sharman - In 2009 I self-published my first novel entitled The Darkness Saga: The Light (currently available at amazon.co.uk) which has been ...
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