13 Nights of Shocktober: Alien

by A.J.

Night 8: Sci-Fi Night/Creature Feature Night

In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

Alien

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. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Christine (1983)

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 11: John Carpenter/Stephen King Night

“You better watch what you say about my car. She's real sensitive.”

Christine (1983)          

John Carpenter’s Christine, based on Stephen King’s novel about a demonic classic car that kills people, is a hard sell. The story has an undeniably ridiculous premise, but it is excellently crafted and well worth watching. The approach taken by director John Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Phillips takes the premise as seriously as a movie about a haunted car should be taken. That tone is serious enough to allow for legitimate suspense and scares but never gets desperate for believability. Thanks to the skill at work behind the camera and a great cast, there is no trouble believing the characters or the unbelievable situations in which they find themselves.

Christine is a cherry red 1958 Plymouth Fury that was just born evil; she killed someone even before she came off the assembly line. Twenty years later, Arnie (Keith Gordon), a stereotypical teenage nerd—thick glasses, clumsy, low self-esteem, relentlessly bullied—finds the rusted, broken down Plymouth Fury for sale in the yard of a creepy old man. As Arnie fixes up Christine he changes too. He stops wearing glasses, slicks back his hair, and goes from put-upon wimp, to brimming with confidence, to an entitled sociopath. His best friend, Dennis (John Stockwell), a popular but level headed jock, is puzzled and troubled by Arnie’s change and suspects it is linked to Christine. 

Arnie begins dating Leigh, the attractive and demure new girl that every boy at school wants to get with, played by Alexandra Paul. When they are at the drive-in, Leigh finds herself alone in Christine for just a moment. The radio turns on by itself, glowing green and playing a 50’s pop song, and Leigh is choking suddenly.

The special effects in Christine are impressive to say the least. Scenes of the car on fire chasing down someone or smashing itself into a narrow ally to get one of Arnie’s bullies are surprisingly scary. The big showcase scene comes after Christine has been completely destroyed by Arnie’s bullies. Out of the corner of his eye, Arnie sees that the rearview mirror is fixed. He walks in front of Christine, says “show me,” and watches as Christine repairs herself to perfect condition. It is a titillating sight for Arnie and the score goes from eerie synthesizer to a salacious saxophone; it’s a sort of love scene. Needless to say, the special effects hold up so well because they are all practical. Christine’s impressive self-repairing scene was achieved by crushing the car and running the footage in reverse. When Christine smashes into something, a real car is really smashing into another car or through a wall. The sight and sounds of real twisted metal make the danger feel real.  

A lot of small touches add up to give Christine an eerie, uncanny tone: the soundtrack of synth music and 1950’s rock and roll, the out of time feel (made in 1983, set in 1978, but feels like it takes place in 1958), the understated approach to the supernatural scenes. My favorite eerie element is Christine’s green glowing radio that only plays music from the 1950’s. There are good performances all around. Keith Gordon gives a great and believable performance as Arnie becomes more and more dangerous. John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, and Harry Dean Stanton, as a state police detective, give solid performances that ground the movie in an acceptable reality.

There is very little blood and no gore in Christine and since the monster is a classic car you could easily watch this with someone squeamish. Christine doesn’t get talked about as much as other Stephen King adaptations, or John Carpenter movies, or horror movies in general, but it should because this a top tier horror film from two true masters of horror.