by A.J.
Night 8: Sci-Fi Night/Creature Feature Night
In Space No One Can Hear You Scream
Supposedly, Alien was pitched as JAWS in space. It’s also been described as the ultimate haunted house movie because it answers the glaring question: why don’t they just leave? Here the answer is clear: they can’t leave because they are in a spaceship, but it is not a ghost or demon lurking around the corner, it is a terrifying alien creature. Alien has spawned numerous sequels, each moving further away from the original and containing less of what made it such a hit with audiences and even critics—it earned two “yes" votes from Siskel and Ebert, who were notoriously hard on the horror genre and Ebert later included it in his Great Movies essays. Alien is an intriguing science fiction picture and effective horror movie thanks to the skill of director Ridley Scott, the entire behind the scenes crew, the amazing cast, and the alien effects. It subtly introduces ideas that incite awe and dreadful wonder, but there is no time to contemplate this because a monster is hunting the crew of average working class people who are not explorers or soldiers or adventurers. Everything about Alien holds up: the suspense, the scares, and even the effects.
It seems silly and unnecessary to describe the plot of Alien. This is one of those movies that nearly everyone has seen and even if they haven’t, they are familiar with its most famous scenes. The crew of the Nostromo, a commercial starship hauling mineral ore back to earth, is awoken from suspended animation to respond to a signal from a distant planet. They investigate an ancient cyclopean alien spacecraft and one of the crew is attacked by a strange crablike creature from an alien egg. Once on board the alien evolves and begins stalking the crew.
Alien is one of those movies with a long, storied production history that somehow turned out a classic. The making-of featurettes on the DVD feel endless but they are also endlessly fascinating. Director Ridley Scott insisted that the cast had to be perfect because his primary focus would be the effects and production. Somehow, a perfect cast was assembled: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto. The crew of the Nostromo are working class people who all feel familiar. Stanton and Koto complain about their pay and contracts; Ripley (Weaver) is annoyed that her authority is ignored; the captain, Dallas (Skerritt), just wants to get back to Earth to finish the job. Weaver as Ripley is undoubtedly the breakout performance and the character has become iconic.
The most memorable scene is undoubtedly the “chest burster” scene. According to legend the cast’s shocked and horrified reactions are real because they did not know what was going to happen or what the alien would look like. This is only partially true. Weaver and Cartwright had already seen the alien and Skerritt knew because he had been sneaking around the effects department. What the cast did not know is how much fake blood there would be or that it would be spurting everywhere. When a jet of fake blood hit Cartwright she was caught off guard, slipped, fell, and got back up into frame quickly; the look of shock on her face was from her fall.
The alien creature and spacecraft were designed by the strange and visionary mind of H.R. Giger, who the production staff found so weird that they put his office on the far side of the building (though Scott and screenwriter Dan O’Bannon say they got along fine with Giger, who is not as weird as his work would suggest). In interviews Giger reveals that worms and snakes and tentacles terrify him and he squirms describing the things that make up his own work. Everything about the alien, the spacecraft, and the eggs looks like something from a nightmare; anything familiar looking about the alien only makes it look scarier. The design of the Nostromo by Ron Cobb makes the ship look and feel like a lived-in vehicle, not a flashy adventureship. Having everything about the alien and everything built by humans have two different designers was a stroke of genius because each feels so distinct and also incongruous with the other.
Alien moves slowly but it is well paced whether you’re watching the scenes of the crew members going about their routine or the horror scenes with the alien. Despite gross things like the “facehugger” alien and the “chestburster” scene, and even the alien itself, this movie mainly uses suspense to get at the audience, and uses it well. The scares, even if you know they are coming, still startle and scare and shock, and they’re still there waiting, lurking.
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