Film Review: Alien

Director: Ridley Scott

Alien is a science-fiction horror film from 1979 that went on to huge success both critically and commercially before spawning numerous sequels and prequels with Prometheus (Preview here) coming out on 1st June 2012. It also won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects within the film and was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2002 for historical preservation as a film which is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) searching for the Alien

A commercial spaceship called Nostromo is returning from a mining mission on the planet Thedus when the crew are woken up from stasis by the ship's computer as it has received a transmission signal, company policy dictates they have to investigate all alien life forms. On the planet, Officer Kane (John Hurt) is attacked by a new born Alien that latches on to his face, Officer Ripley (excellent Sigourney Weaver) wants to keep the search party in quarantine but is over ruled by Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) which gives the Alien chance to attack.
The slow opening with the score from the orchestra and the camera scanning around the ship showing a lot of the equipment actually reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey but with a ship that is not as aesthetically pleasing. The opening 30mins is just full of tension as you have no idea what is to come and when they will inevitably run into danger. The chestbuster scene is now infamous in popular culture and is a shocking scene for anybody who hasn't seen it before; the effects used in the film are superb for a film of this time.

The Alien

Ridley Scott summed up the effect he was looking for perfectly with this quote: "The most important thing in a film of this type is not what you see, but the effect of what you think you saw." It's the implied threat that make films like this and The Shining so terrifying to watch rather than the actual Alien itself and what it looks like. The whole film is built around the tension of not knowing where the Alien is and whether it will attack as a cat is also loose aboard the ship and its movements are often confused with that of the Alien. In this sense Ridley Scott has created a masterpiece in nerve wracking tension and terror.

3.5/4 one of the definitive horror/science fiction movies of all time.