For as long as humans have imagined other worlds, humans have imagined terror coming from those other worlds … but so many imaginations fail to capture what true xenophobia looks like. That is what makes Alien an undeniable classic. Well, that and the fact that it is scary as f***. I’m not sure any of us really understood the horror phenomenon of geographic isolation until Alien came around.
Oh, movie world, you understand now what a valuable horror tool this is? I bet you do. A monster hunting for you? Scary. A monster hunting for you in a prison? Exponentially scarier.
Alien is currently celebrating its 45th anniversary, which means it has been 45 years since I last saw it. It was time.
One thing I’d like to talk about here is how the Alien franchise somehow got partnered with the Predator franchise. This never made any sense to me. Alien is a product of the 1970s, a time where we mistrusted capitalism (think about who the real bad guys are in both Alien and Aliens) and curiosity, had grown weary of the antiseptic nature of space travel, and decided the best way to handle malfunctioning technology was to give something a good whack. Predator, OTOH, was distinctly a product of the 1980s. It was yet another mediocre Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle and expressed the Reagan-ized 1980s values of style over substance while favoring a weird paramilitary nature within anything popular. The first two Alien films are classics, among the best their particular genre has even seen. The first Predator was an extended Viagra commercial. The sequel was among the worst films of the year. The franchise wouldn’t make a decent film until the century had long since turned.
These films are not of the same era, not of similar quality, and weren’t expressing similar things. Alien is essentially about xenophobia with an unsubtle jab at capitalism; Predator is about war. So why are these films locked together? Is this a graphic novel thing? Hmmm, how shall I put this? This is like combing Up with The Emoji Movie. Sure, you could, but … why? Honestly, I attribute the combining of Alien and Predator to the hubris of Hollywood. Well, heck, I suppose that’s the common theme here: both films are about the hubris of humans attempting to control the uncontrollable. Is that a good enough reason to combine them? Well, Up and The Emoji Movie are both animated. Look, call me when you’ve combined Alien with Terminator. Now, that’s a battle that might get my attention.
Now if you don’t know the original Alien film, well, you’re in for a treat … or an endless nightmare. The basics are
this: a crew of mediocre capitalist co-workers are awoken from their space-travel hypersleep by something resembling an SOS. Upon exploration of the signal, the crew finds a dead spaceship littered with human-sized egg-like pods littering the basement. The stupidest among them goes in for a closer look and gets a facefull of Alien. A day later, the dude “gives birth” to a monster in most grisly fashion. And half a day after that, whatever burst out of John Hurt’s chest is now the size of a grizzly bear, just as deadly, and perpetually in stealth attack mode.
And everybody on the ship is a target. There’s some other stuff going on, but that’s the basic gist. Before long, we’ll be down to just Sigourney Weaver and the role that made her career.
Watching it anew made me appreciate the style of film more than anything else. Space travel depicted in the 1950s and 1960s inevitably depicted manly virile white Lancelot types bravely charging through space in spotless antiseptic capsules. They explored with a wariness that was never enough to overcome their intrepid souls. Even “Star Trek,” the epitome of diversity and inclusion from the era, couldn’t escape this stereotype. Alien is nothing of the sort. I didn’t want to spend five minutes on that deathtrap of a ship … and that was long before it was a deathtrap. The crew, to a person, are all flawed capitalists. And, heck, any time Harry Dean Stanton shows up in anything, you just KNOW the place is gonna need a good scrubbing afterwards.
Alien is the constant after of “How it started/How it’s going” juxtapositions. In 1979, that wasn’t a given. And as monsters go, it’s really hard to beat Alien. I remember as a kid being a little put off that I could never
see the villain properly. That was a choice. And a damn good one. I don’t think there’s a single shot in the film in which one can see all of the Alien. And in that way, the horror is primarily left to our terrible imaginations. Take it from Blair Witch Project, what you can imagine is almost always worse than the actual. Had we ever seen the Alien fully, it might have seemed defeatable. The “partial Alien” -obsidian black and amorphously large who no eyes and two mouths is nightmare fodder forever.
Another thing I never appreciated properly was the biology of the Alien. I know this occurred for pacing reasons, but do we ever appreciate how quickly this thing grows? I dunno what kind of ovum the facehugger deposits in a human cavity, but it cant be bugger than a peanut m&m, no? Within a day, it’s the size of an adult snake. Within hours after that, it’s the biggest living thing on the ship. And why is it out for blood? Who the Hell knows? It just is. Accept it … and hide.
Is this the scariest movie ever? If I’m being honest, I was more tensed up while watching Aliens, but a front row seat at a sold-out opening night screening might do that to you. For its era, Alien sure was the scariest thing to be found. Alien fit nicely within the new era of slasher horror: Jason and Michael Myers and Freddy Kruger and whatever Stephen King or John Carpenter had in mind. In this era, the stakes changed. The films had to be more intense, with higher body counts, gorier deaths, and bigger thrills. Aliens (1986) reflected such. While Alien only had one scene of spectacular gore, it certainly ushered in a metaphorical and literal wave of blood not unlike the elevator scene in The Shining. I won’t call it the scariest ever. But I won’t NOT call it such, either. One way or another, Alien certainly solidified a place in sci-fi, horror, and scare history all at the same time.
Officer Ripley got into a spot
When an Alien carved up her lot
In a closed space
Looking death in the face
Yet survived, believe it or not
Rated R, 117 Minutes
Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Genre: Our screwed future
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Horror fans, sci-fi fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who hate tense situations
