ALIEN (1979)
Director: Ridley Scott
Genre: Science Fiction/Survival/Body Horror
THE MOVIE:
Ridley Scott’s Alien is a milestone in monster and horror cinema and features what is arguably the greatest movie monster of all time: The Alien, designed by Swiss artist H. R. Giger. The movie has spawned three sequels (each helmed by a different gifted director with radically different takes on the material), two cross-over prequels with the Predator franchise, and too many rip-offs to list here. It also helped to launch the careers of star Sigourney Weaver and director Ridley Scott. In addition to all of this, Alien and its sequels have also inspired a flood of spin-off comics, novels and videogames. It was one of the first genre movies to feature a woman as a strong protagonist and the ultimate survivor (this is heightened in James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens in which Ripley becomes a bonafide action heroine) and Alien features what Bravo TV deems the second scariest movie moment of all time: the infamous dinner scene, one of the most shocking and disturbing sequences in the history of the movies.
Alien was produced as part of the great late 70’s sci-fi boom in the wake of Star Wars but in many ways it is the polar opposite George Lucas’ movie. Whereas Star Wars is an optimistic piece of bubblegum space fanstasy, Alien is a dark and cynical horror tale that is thoroughly unromantic about the exploration of space and what we may find once we get there. While Luke Skywalker desperately dreams of adventures off his humdrum planet, Ripley and her crew would have been better off staying home. Ultimately, they are only in space to work, not to save the universe.
At its core, Alien is a throwback to the Sci-Fi horror films of the 1950’s such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space, in which a spaceship is menaced by an alien that hides in the shadows picking off the crew one by one until it is blown out of the airlock. Alien does a better job of creating suspense and exploiting social tensions between the crew members. It shares with Star Wars a certain design aesthetic of a “used universe” unlike the sleek chrome rocket ships of classic Sci-Fi movies or the clinical whiteness of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The production design of Alien attempts to create a realistic utilitarian space in which a small crew lives in for long periods of time. The phase “truck drivers in space” was thrown around a lot during preproduction.
Ridley Scott’s film begins as the crew of the enormous interstellar shipping vessel “Nostromo” is awakened from an induced hibernation by a mysterious distress symbol. They receive instructions from their faceless employer (referred to throughout the film as “The Company”) to investigate this beacon. Once on the barren planet they discover a mysterious derelict space craft complete with a fossilized alien pilot and a cache of leathery eggs. When crewmember Kane examines an egg it hatches and a strange crablike creature attaches itself to his face. Kane ultimately ends up birthing The Alien which stalks the crew one by one until only Ripley is left.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:
The real star of the movie is Giger’s Alien. Without this extraordinary and nightmarish creature the movie would not be as effective as it is. H. R. Giger designed The Alien through its various life stages as well as the derelict ship and it’s interior. From the moment we see this ship on a grainy video feed from one of the crewmember’s exo-suits we know that we are in for something special.
The ship itself is actually alien-looking. This is in itself remarkable because as often as you see extraterrestrials and their technology in movies the designs rarely look alien. Giger’s ship is vaguely horseshoe shaped but also asymmetrical with a strange bioorganic appearance. The crew enters through a weird sphincter-like orifice and one can see in that one shot that they simply do not belong there. One of the underlying themes of the movie is the very Lovecraftian, Men Do Not Belong in the Stars. This is powerfully reinforced in Giger’s design. The derelict ship is not made for men, it is the wrong scale, it is so alien as to be beyond human comprehension, the explorers stumble around it like children (not coincidentally children were used in these scenes so the sets could be constructed at half scale.)
The brilliance of the concept and design of Giger’s Alien is how it taps into people’s psychosexual fear and discomfort. The Alien itself is conceived in an act of oral rape, in which a creature attaches itself to Kane’s head and inserts a long tube down his throat with which it plants its seed. When we later see the underside of this “facehugger” we see organs that somehow manage to look like a penis and a vagina at the same time.
The infant alien later erupts from Kane in a bloody parody of childbirth. When we next see it, The Alien is spindly and asexual with a long phallic head. Novelist Anne Rice has speculated that movies like Alien and its imitators-in which sexualized or fetus-like Body Horrors exact their revenge on society-are exhibiting a kind of collective guilt over abortion.
In terms of special effects, the creature is realized primarily through suitmation and clever editing that rarely lets you see the entire Alien. The impression from watching the movie is that you ever know exactly what the Alien looks like.
MONSTERS FEATURED:
1 Alien.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:
I like the exploration of the derelict ship. It’s very creepy and overwhelmingly Gigeresque.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY:
Widely available on its own or in boxed sets. There two different DVD boxed sets the first of which features Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 or the superior Alien Quadrilogy, set which features theatrical and alternate cuts of all FOUR movies. The special features for Alien include deleted scenes as well as a documentary on the making of the film as well as the usual trailers and interviews, as well as the exhaustive special features from the old Alien laser disc.
The Alien Anthology Bluray set is truly beautiful thing, with all of the above features and plenty of Bluray exclusive content, and it offers a customizable way to watch the bonus features according to what you are interested in seeing.
Out of all the movies in the series, Alien, really shines in this HD format. One really begins to appreciate the abundance of detail in the sets and costumes. The Anthology set is a must for any fan of this movie.
SEQUELS:
Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), Alien Resurrection (1997), Alien Vs. Predator (2004) (Prequel), Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
It has recently been announced that fifth and sixth Alien movie will be produced...directed by none other than Ridley Scott! These will be prequels to the 1979 movie. Scott has been circling another Alien movie for years and he has previously said that he was interested in seeing the Alien home world and possible exploring the origins of the fossilized "Space Jockey"that we see aboard the derelict ship in Alien.
THE TRAILER:
SEE ALSO:
The Thing (1982), It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958), Species (1995)
No comments:
Post a Comment