261 Days of Horror, Day 24: Alien

[yendi]

Alien. 1979. Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Dan O'Bannon. Released by 20th Century Fox.

There are certain horror classics that transcend the genre. Films like Whale's two Frankenstein movies, Browning's Dracula, and Hitchcock's Psycho aren't just great horror movies. They're masterpieces that all moviegoers owe it to themselves to watch. Ridley Scott's Alien belongs on this list as well. I don't intend to cover more than one of these a month*, as these are such well-knownclassics that a traditional review is pretty much pointless. But films this good deserve at least some mention amongst all the crap I write about here.

Is there anyone who really hasn't seen this?

Okay, I'll keep the recap brief. The spaceship (space towboat, really) Nostromo gets a distress signal, and sends a few folks down to a planet to check it out. One of the crewmembers, Kane**, stumbles across a colony of strange looking eggs. As he stares at them, one of the eggs slowly opens, and a giant bug-like thing latches itself to his face!

Although Warrant Officer Ripley warns that Kane could carry an infection and shouldn't be brought on board, Science Officer Ash*** overrides her, and Kane, now in a coma with a giant bug on his face, is loaded onto The Nostromo. Attempts to remove the bug show that its "blood" is actually acid, and that it's so integrated into Kane's nervous system that removing it would kill him. Things look bad for Kane until suddenly, without warning, the bug falls off, apparently dead.

At dinner that night, however, Kane starts convulsing, and a tiny little alien creature bursts out of his chest and runs away! The members of the crew attempt to track the creature down with a motion detector, but between the narrow airshafts and the ship's cat, they have trouble finding it. But Engineer Brett does manage to track it down, for values of "track it down" that include "having a now full-sized alien bite your head."

Captain Dallas bravely enters the airshafts with a flamethrower in an attempt to kill the creature or drive it away from the rest of the crew, but he instead gets bravely eaten.

Ripley learns that the never-named Company for whom they all work actually wanted Kane to get infected, because they wanted an alien specimen. Oh, and Science Officer Ash turns out to be an android working for the Company, and he almost kills Ripley before Head Engineer Parker decapitates him.

Parker and Navigator Lambert head off to get some supplies, and Ripley prepares the shuttle for launch so that they can just blow up the Nostromo and the Alien. But the Alien kills Parker and Lambert. Ripley almost escapes, but then goes back onto the ship for the cat, and the Alien sneaks onto the shuttle while she does so. A small fight ensues, but Ripley uses a grappling gun and the vacuum of space to get the Alien outside the ship; she then nails it with the ship's engines. She settles down for a nice suspended-animation nap, confident that she'll never have to face any more aliens again.

Alien certainly isn't a masterpiece because of the plot. As others have noted, it's from the long line of monster/slasher movies that sees the cast members picked off one-by-one. The added element of corporate malfeasance, although certainly not as embedded in the filmgoing tradition, is the theme of practically every other movie of the '70s.

Part of why Alien works is that it rebelled against almost every mainstream filmed vision of the future that preceded it: it made the future bleak. Even the big screen dystopias -- Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, etc -- contained worlds filled with wonder (often in Technicolor), and the space operas filled with laser battles and lots of mingling aliens were as lively as '50s musicals. In the Nostromo, Alien gives us a cavernous ship that resembles a warehouse more than a sleek sci-fi Vehicle of the Future. We get minimal lights and amenities, because, well, why would corporations waste money on such things?

Of course, one can't discount H.R. Giger's incredible design for the Alien itself. Giger's vision has been so widely mimicked that folks take it for granted nowadays, but few creatures in film history are as well-designed and truly scary (that second mouth!) as the titular Alien.

And the solid cast -- featuring Harry Dean Stanton, Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartright, Tom Skerritt, and (of course) Sigourney Weaver handle their roles without falling into the overacting trap that many sci-fi and horror actors step into. In fact, Weaver (a last-minute choice for Ripley) creates one of the great leads in horror movie history, taking the Final Girl archetype and shredding it****.

And the nature of the Alien itself -- a creature who emerges from a human host, making all its victims, essentially, other humans -- plays on the fear-of-self already found in the Body Snatchers movies, the zombie genre and in possession films like Rosemary's Baby. That theme might be recycled, but its use in a space setting is a major chunk of what subverts the "happy future" archetype, as we remain our own enemies even when we escape the planet.

All of this is brought together by the superb direction of Ridley Scott. His vision of a dark and dreary future (something he'd bring to his next film, Blade Runner, as well), as well as his sense that space and the unknown, no matter how much they might have to offer, are immensely terrifying, influenced dozens of future filmmakers, including, most notably, James Cameron. Dan O'Bannon's screenplay (supposedly extensively re-written by Walter Hill, and eventually the subject of an A.E. van Vogt plagiarism lawsuit) ) provides a good setting and cast of characters, and the gothic set designs of Ron Cobb and Jerry Goldsmith's fine score create the perfect environment of claustrophobia and fear.

I'm not a huge fan of overanalyzing the classics. If you haven't seen Alien, you need to see it, period. It's one of the most influential horror and science-fiction films of the last forty years. If you have, watch it again.

*In fact, my goal is to kick off each month with a review of a classic, and to finish the year up with one as well, giving us twelve of them (since Doom, the one I started January with, need not apply for "classic" status).

**Yes, this is one of many genre works featuring a character named Kane. And yes, it's an annoying trend. But it was fresher back then.

***Housewares.

****I'm still not sure if the cutting-room-floor scenes -- featuring Ripley and Dallas making love, and later her having to kill her alien-infested lover ---would have added or undercut her ability as an on-screen heroine. But for today's review, I'm looking at this movie based on the cut released by Scott and Fox originally, not taking deleted scenes from the DVD into account.

Comments

[thornsilver]

I prefer the second movie to the first one, largely because of Michael Biehn and the involvement of Marines. But, boy, did #3 and 4 sucked....

[yendi]

I adore the second movie -- if only because of characters like Hudson and Vasquez, as well as Paul Reiser's surprisingly good turn as the sleazy corporate scumbag. I still prefer the first, though, for the air of paranoia it creates.

I've grown more sympathetic towards Alien 3 over the years, although it's still deeply flawed. #4, on the other hand, was a complete waste of time.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

My feeling is that each sequel added it's own bit to the mythos... 2 with the introduction of the queen, 3 with the bit about the form of the adult alien being tied to the form of its host, and 4 with its creepy human cloney hybrid. I don't necessarily see the sequels explicitly retconning their predecessors, while still adding additional rules or knowledge that I could accept may have been withheld from us out of our ignorance of the species. (No, I know Geiger didn't plan for all those variations from day one, but the idea that the COULD have been intrigues me enough with a suspension of disbelief.)

[yendi]

I'm less bothered by what #3 did in terms of adding to the mythology (which was fine) than I am by what it did from a storytelling pov to the previous movie. Taken away from that history, it's actually a solid film.

As far as #4 goes, I guess I just didn't feel that the clone plotline was interesting enough to really add to the mythos at all.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I headlined my high school paper review of Alien 3 In script committees no one can hear you scream, because I'd heard of the endless revising of what the hell would be in the movie.

[scathedobsidian.livejournal.com]

One thing 4 had right was a great score.

[markdeniz.livejournal.com]

I love 3 actually and would have loved even more to see what Fincher would have done had they given him final edit.

His quote:

"I'd rather get stomach cancer than do Alien 3 again"

[yendi]

Heh. I'd be curious as to what Fincher would have done, as well (and now, it's safe to say, they'd give him the power to have his own edit, too).

[markdeniz.livejournal.com]

Well he wanted to have a lot more dialogue and look a lot more at the whole psychology of the prisoners before and after the alien arrived.

Knowing Fincher it would have been the best of the four...

[ersatzinsomnia.livejournal.com]

I've always held that the series was unique because each film was a distinctly different genre.

1) Haunted-house horror
2) Military flick
3) Art flick
4) Foreign film

:)

[yendi]

I think I'd change #4 to "poorly scripted summer blockbuster," myself. :-)

[markdeniz.livejournal.com]

By an amazing director, weirdly enough...

[ersatzinsomnia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, between that and Dominic Pinion it made me stare really hard at the flick and realize how much it resembled Delicatessen & especially the City of Lost Children. Strip off the excessive action sequences & that's what you find. So it got the "Foreign Film" tag.

[yendi]

He's been amazing before and since, but I think he's much better when he's not working in Hollywood.

[markdeniz.livejournal.com]

You mean you're not a My Two Dads fan?

*smirks*

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't know if I've seen the original Alien all the way through. I loved the second one, though.

You mentioned that Sigourney Weaver was a last-minute choice for Ripley. Do you know who else they were considering?

[yendi]

Veronica Cartwright was one. And (as commented below), the original script didn't even feature any female characters.

[markdeniz.livejournal.com]

Great review of a great film!

[yendi]

Thanks!

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The rumor I heard, and this rumor is only really plausible if the deleted scene was a last-minute, post-casting addition, is that the script was written without any of the characters' genders really in mind.

[yendi]

It's true. The original script was significantly different, and featured only male characters. But that was written well before Scott came on board.

[libco.livejournal.com]

One of the greats really. I saw this at age 12 in the theatre. Holy shit. People screamed, popcorn went flying and we all sat in stunned silence followed by applause.

[yendi]

Alas, I was too young to see it in the theatres, and had to make due with the TV edit the first time. Still scared me near to death.

[libco.livejournal.com]

People who weren't there cannot truly appreciate the omigod factor of this movie when it came out. Scared the fuck out of us-we were bragging to each other how scared we were.

[rowancat.livejournal.com]

Always loved this film, i may yet get the deluxe dvd.
Gothic horror set in outer space...

Following a lead from you, i bought the double sided dvd at Amazon of
The Abominable Dr Phibes/Dr Phibes Rises Again, i saw these
first run and on cable, etc. Totally over the top in inventive
killings by Dr Phibes, great Art Deco ambiance and of course the beautiful Vulvania. I still think these are two of his best :)
(The closest in theme and style is Theater of Blood, i think.)

The unicorn at the beginning of the first one is still a classic scene. The two films feel like Vincent Price meets early Monty Python.

Saving the two Dr Phibes to watch on just the right night.

Someone threw out some VHS tapes, including:

Friday the 13th, parts 2 and 3. Been so long since i saw these
(or even read your reviews) i had to hunt back through your journal to see if they are worth rewatching and apparently they are...
Will watch and pass the tapes on to someone else.

Thanks and thanks also for the reviews you have been posting :)

[yendi]

Thanks! And glad to hear you found the wonderful Phibes flicks!

[blazingmoogle.livejournal.com]

The only issue some people have with it is Ripley going back for the cat.

A strong female character acting like a strong female character should, suddenly turns into a typical "Final girl" to excuse a meander through the empty Nostromo. Sorry, that part has ALWAYS bugged me.

And the gratuitous looking underwear scene.

Other than that, even considering the above, it's one hell of a fucking scary and finely crafted movie.

[blazingmoogle.livejournal.com]

Also, as an aside, about your icon...

You gonna review Snakes?

[yendi]

Hell yes. I just need to get a copy of it (which I'm figuring will happen no later than early April).

[yendi]

The cat thing drives me nuts for years. But I also understand the need, when she's seen everyone else she knows die, to try to save the cat. It's not something that necessarily struck me as "female," but as "human."

[libco.livejournal.com]

Seemed like a totally normal reaction to me. I know plenty of men who would have gone back too.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

Makes sense.

I need to ask greygirlbeast what her feelings were on the cat rescue. I know she's defended it strongly, but I never heard exactly what she said.

Good review, great film. I never saw Alien in theaters until that re-edited version a couple of years ago; I thought the adding of cocooned Dallas was overly awkward (it was apparently cut to the bare minimum of footage) and the extra scenes generally didn't add that much, but little things really worked like shortening the cut from decapitated Ash to when he starts talking. With the cut, you have less time to notice that the first Ash is a (wobbly) model.

I sometimes do that little out-of-nowhere jogging in place thing that Ash does, soon after the landing.

[chaoset.livejournal.com]

I would add Carpenter's The Thing and Browning's Freaks to that list of all time classics.

[chaoset.livejournal.com]

And, because my memory can be compared to swiss cheese, The Wicker Man. These three movies are near perfect.

[yendi]

Both of those are true classics (The Thing might be my all-time favorite horror flick, actally).

[chaoset.livejournal.com]

The Thing is also my favourite, topping out even The Wicker Man, which is my second favourite. Are you planning on reviewing The Thing? I'm curious as to your take on the ending, but I'd rather not have spoilers in the review for a different movie.
Also, have you seen The Descent?

[wakingdreaming.livejournal.com]

I've never seen it.