Alien 1979
Directed by Ridley Scott. The man who was in charge of Prometheus, Matchstick men and The Martian to name a few brought us this film nearly 40 years ago now.
Feeling old yet?
After a certain little film by George Lucas in 1977, science fiction became the hot property in Hollywood. 20th Century Fox wanted to follow through on the success of Star Wars quickly and the only spaceship script they had was Alien, so they gave it the go ahead with a budget of $4.2m after the film was pitched as “Jaws in space”. The powers that be from newly set up production company Brandywine had been impressed with Scott’s first feature film The Duellists and offered him the directors chair.
20th Century fox liked Scott’s detailed storyboards for the film so much that they doubled the initial budget.
The year is 2122, the commercial towing ship the Nostromo is heading back to earth with twenty million tonnes of mineral ore when it’s crew are awoken early from hypersleep by a mysterious SOS signal. They are contractually obligated to investigate so set down on the planet of it’s origin. From here, all fucking hell breaks loose.
Isolation horror is one of my favourite genres of film, and this hits every note for me. I like this film so much and I’ll try to tell you why in a few paragraphs but it may not be easy to keep it short.
The characters
It works because we care about every one of them. There is no acceptable loss in the group, no red shirted, first name only engineer to be thrown to the wolves. They’re everyday people just trying to do their job. They are all relatable in their own way. The script is very smart in the way it introduces us to the characters. Tom Skerritt is the first name you see on screen, he’s the captain so he’s the hero right? Nope. Nowhere in the first act of the film do you see Ripley as the lead. She’s there all the time but doesn’t step up until it’s needed. But when she does… Boom! kick-ass heroine that runs though the centre of this franchise.
The sound design, lighting and sets:
The ship groans and creaks in every scene and the bowels of it are leaking, rusty and dark, making it a perfect hunting ground for the xenomorph. It’s a stark contrast to the brilliant white dining area which starts as a safe haven and a happy place for the crew but turns into anything but.
The acting:
The actors aren’t acting like they’re in a horror movie, they’re acting like they’re in a movie about people who do their job and have to deal with something they don’t want to do. The almost inane conversations between them put you at ease early on which just heightens the tensions later on.
The Direction:
Scott knew exactly what he wanted from the actors and got it from them, no matter how long it took. Tom Skerritt was vocal about how much time Scott would take to set up the scenes and said it would detract from his performance but in later interviews he admitted the experience was worth it.
Creature Design:
Swiss artist H. R. Giger (who also came up with the concept art for Sil the alien in the 1995 film Species) and Italian special effects designer Carlo Rambaldi are to blame for many a kid-growing-up-in-the-80’s nightmares. From face-hugger to fully grown, I don’t think there has been a more scary alien in film history. There is a line in the film that tells the whole story:
“You still don’t understand what you’re dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by it’s hostility.” How cool is this film?
All this on its own would make a great film, but the thing that pushes this movie above most other horrors is…
The suspense:
To Paraphrase Hitchcock, a bomb under a table explodes and you have fifteen seconds of surprise, but if you know fifteen minutes in advance the bomb will go off, then you have a quarter of an hour of suspense – that’s how this film presents it’s antagonist. It teases you with suspense for most of the run time. We, as an audience, can only see something for the first time once, so why not keep it from us for as long as possible. The alien hiding in the shadows, and only partial shots of it, leave us with our imagination to fill in the blanks which is a brilliant and much forgotten way of shooting horror films. These days we’d have seen the alien in all it’s glory within the first 5 minutes of a film…… perhaps even the trailer.
To sum up, I’ll just say: Alien is not just one of the best horror movies of all time, it’s also simply one of the best movies of all time.
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