Alien

Alien (1979)

The crew of the ore hauler Nostromo is awoken early from their suspended animation because their ship has deviated from its course to investigate a mysterious alien signal. While some of the crew is very unhappy with this course of events they are forced to investigate because of their contract to the company. They discover that the signal is coming from a small planet and while landing the ship is damaged. While part of the crew repairs the ship others decided to track down the signal. What they discover is an alien ship crash-landed on the surface. The crew of the ship is long dead, but they do discover some strange eggs on the vessel. One of which opens up to reveal a creature, which immediately attaches itself to a member of the crew. They bring the injured crewman back to the ship and attempt to remove the creature. Before they can figure out a way to manage it without killing the man the creature dies and falls off of him. Soon he is awake and none the worse for the experience, at least until the creature that was implanted in him decides to burst from his chest during supper! After giving their friend a burial in space the crew breaks into groups to track down and kill the little creature that was responsible for the death. Unfortunately for them the creature is much larger now and decides to start making snacks of the crew. Additionally it seems that the company that operates the vessel may be using them to collect specimens and that a member of the crew isn’t what he appears to be. How will the crew deal with the danger and will any of them survive?

Where to start? The story is a wonderful combination of a traditional horror tale with sci-fi elements added in. Setting the film on a space ship in the middle of nowhere is incredibly effective and brings sense of isolation and claustrophobia that is unique to the movie. Some of the younger readers who have grown up with these movies won’t realize how horrifying the face hugger and chest burster were. The fact that the “monsters” in Alien didn’t just kill you, but violated your body like that is really creepy. To top it all off the writers creation of the character of Ash to creates even more paranoia and unease. Of course you can have the greatest script ever written and it means nothing without a superior cast. I challenge anyone to find a genre movie with a better cast than the one that was assembled for Alien. When the “weak” link of the cast is newcomer Sigorney Weaver I think that you are doing pretty damn good! Alien also benefited by the direction of Ridley Scott. Without his vision and direction of the movie it would have never been the classic that it is. Not only did Scott cast the film with actors that needed minimal direction so he could concentrate on the technical aspects of the movie, but also he did much of the handheld camera work personally. If you watch the extras you will find out that Fox doubled the budget based solely upon looking at Scott’s storyboards. As with everything else about the movie the special effects are outstanding. The designs done by H.R. Giger for the alien spacecraft and the creature itself are disturbing and beautiful at the same time. Most of the practical effects were so well done that they still look very good to an audience almost 30 years after the films initial release. There isn’t a ton of gore beyond the demise of the Kane character, but how could you really top that anyway? To be fair the scene where Ash’s head comes off is described by director Ridley Scott as a “little dodgy” and I would have to agree. But overall the effects are well done and the movie contains one of the best-remembered effects scenes in movie history.

For this review I watched the new Alien Blu-Ray from the box set that was released just this October. The set is chocked full of extras that I still haven’t managed to get thru. I did take the time to check out both the original theatrical cut and the director’s cut. Yeah I’m that big of a nerd for this movie. Either version of the movie is well worth checking out, though it was cool to see some of the extra stuff in the director’s cut. And again I’ve not had the chance to dig thru all the special features included, but I can tell you there is a tone of them.

Alien is a classic movie that is a must see for all genre fans. I highly recommend the movie and this Blu-Ray collection. Normally I’m against “double dipping” but in this case if you are a fan of the movie you really have to own this collection.

4 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer