Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Yaphet Kotto, Ian Holm
Released 1979, Rated R, 1h 57 min runtime
You’ve seen Alien before. Even if you haven't.
Few movies have had such influence, let alone spanned multiple genres and spawned a phenomenally successful franchise. A rare example of exceptional multifaceted art, Ridley Scott’s 1979 Sci-Fi/Horror epic grabs the viewer with a steel grip and feeds them a groundbreakingly chilling creepshow.
Alien’s success can be traced back to its first steps. An often overlooked aspect of a film is its trailer. Does it show too much? Does it show too little? Does the audience know what it’s about? Do they care? Alien’s trailer shows just enough for you to take interest. It's a masterclass on intrigue. It taps some primal part of our brains that drag us along to see just what it’s all about. Pretty good for a 2 minute shot of an egg on uncut brownies and some distorted audio. Of course, the log line helps seal the deal. “In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream.”
In the grand puzzle of genre, Ridley Scott takes pieces from Sci-Fi and Horror and smashes them together. Somehow he comes out with something better than the picture on the box. Sci-Fi and Horror have both been around forever. Literature wise they date back countless years. Sci-Fi embodies human evolution and spirit, technological marvels, inventions of grandeur, and ideas on the border of our brains. Horror digs deep in the psyche and yanks buried unsettling thoughts to the front of the mind. Seldom do they mesh to create the eerie wonder of fear not yet thought of. Alien makes you scared of things you never knew existed. The film draws you into those thoughts only to fill you with dread when that wonder goes cold. Not to say Ridley Scott is the only director who can make a good Sci-Fi/Horror flick, John Carpenter and The Thing would beg to differ, but he’s without a doubt one of the best to ever do it.
Alien’s set pieces scream off the screen like none other. Three main aspects meld together and embed themselves in the background, drawing out perfect tones. Firstly, we’re welcomed by the spaceship’s clean white hallways - a Sci-Fi staple seen in years prior (2001, Star Wars, etc). The hallways feel sterile, somewhat like a doctor’s office. Once the ship crashes on the planet, the sets become much more unique. We begin to see ornate extraterrestrial structures that tug at our eyes and captivate our interest. Contrasting the hallways, we’ve never seen anything quite like this. Finally, once quarantine is broken and an infected crewmember is brought aboard, we’re treated to an exploration of the more uncharted areas of the ship. The cramped maintenance tunnels and pitch black mechanical bay evoke the deepest discomforts. At this point our once sterile view of the ship is tainted. The Alien is aboard and it’s hunting, thus we’re shown much more unsettling parts of the ship. Exceptional cinematography be damned if not for these sets. They really put the viewer in the shoes of the crewmembers whether they realize it or not. It’s subliminal. Visual storytelling at its finest.
Unlike most horror movies and unlike almost all Sci-Fi movies, Alien’s best trait is that it makes you feel like you’re there. As your brain tries to wrap around Alien, the film infects you with subconscious paranoia. It creeps up your spine and keeps your eyes glued to the screen, awaiting each gripping Xenomorph encounter. This feeling, an undeniable influence on countless other movies, will never be done as well as Alien. Though it will always be tried. So even without seeing Alien, you’ve seen Alien. You will again and again but next time you actually watch Alien, you’ll see what it’s like when it’s done right and you’ll love it just a little more.