This post is part of a series called "31 Days of Horror", thirty-one important horror films over the course of a month. Click Alien (1979): Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartwright and Yaphet Kotto. Directed by Ridley Scott, Screenplay by Dan O’Bannon, Story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.
It’s true that at its heart, “Alien” is nothing more than a B-monster picture. At the time that the script eventually made its way to Ridley Scott, it had already been turned down by some pretty big name directors (Walter Hill, Peter Yates, Robert Aldrich) and the studio rather sheepishly handed it to him, expecting the same. Scott, however, saw what the other directors didn’t see and from something that shamelessly copied from so many sources (”The Thing from Another World”, “Planet of the Vampires” and numerous sci-fi short stories) came something wholly original.
The work of artist H.R. Giger, on its own, is enough to send goosebumps, but the style of the production, paired with this is what gives “Alien” (not its successive sequels and franchise films) its edge. Within twenty minutes (maybe less) you feel the isolation the crew of the Nostromo face and as the threat of an unstoppable killer alien roaming free on their ship grows, you absolutely know there’s no way for them to escape. Like all good monster movies, the threat itself is rarely onscreen, but you know it is there, you know it is always lurking around the very next corner. This is the thing that really makes the other films in the “series” fail as horror films, in my opinion, you just see too much of the creature(s); if you know where the monsters are, you won’t be shocked by where they might be.
“Alien” holds a special place for me in and of itself. A long-time horror fan, I was lured toward sci-fi with the “Star Wars” phenomenon in 1977. Monsters suddenly weren’t cool anymore. Until “Alien”, that is. The film successfully took what was happening with slasher films at the time (”Halloween” and “Friday the 13th”), mixed them with a space film and brought back old-fashioned monster movie making (the film was originally pitched as “‘Jaws’ in space”). Just as “Alien” owes a great deal to the works that inspired it, a good deal of what we’re looking at today owes direct inspiration to “Alien”.
The original “egg teaser” (below) is like a time machine for me. Shot on less than a shoestring, it was one of the first teaser trailers to include very little footage from the film, relying, instead, on pushing some sort of iconic image that would be replicated on posters and newspaper ads (it’s no wonder that Scott became the visual genius behind Apple’s 1984 launch campaign). Too many trailers like this today are masking the fact that the film has nothing to show, but in this case, the film more than delivers.
Teaser Trailer:
Get it at Amazon.com:
Alien Quadrilogy (Alien/ Aliens /Alien 3 /Alien Resurrection)
Related posts:
- Forget “Cloverfield”, “[REC]” is where it’s at!
(via AICN) This one snuck up on me, I hadn't heard anything about it until today (which is strange because... - No, really David, how do you feel about that?
(via Gizmodo) Video clip of David Lynch expressing his feelings on people watching movies on their iPhones (soundtrack remixed as... - Is this the Microsoft/Seinfeld ad that was going to kill Apple? [updated]
(via MacMerc) Mac fanboys were secretly quaking in their boots a few weeks ago when it was announced that TV...
