Alien

Ridley Scott, USA 1979, 124 mins

Ridley Scott's Alien offered a new dark view of space and its exploration. Made only a couple of years after Star Wars, Alien is in complete contrast: its characters are not at all glamorous and the use of space travel appears entirely commercial. The central stage for the action in Alien is the commercial towing vessel "Nostromo". It is a looming hulk of a space ship and its oppressive inhuman feel really helps amplify the horror soon to beset it.

The story begins as the crew of the Nostromo is awoken from an artificial sleep by a mysterious indecipherable message. They set out to investigate this, although only because of a contractual obligation - these characters are not heroes and simply want to get back to Earth (alive) and collect their pay.

As you're bound to already know, everything goes horribly wrong when the Alien gets aboard the ship. This is no intelligent, thoughtful alien, but a slimy, virtually unstoppable predator. A mass of slime and general gore is the result.

A particularly refreshing point about Alien is the presence of an intelligent female hero, quite a rarity in sci-fi. Sigourney Weaver is excellent as Ripley, a character who seems doomed to forever fighting the slimy mother of all aliens. Ian Holm is also suitably sinister as the Science Officer who is not quite all that he appears.

As well as being an original take on sci-fi horror Alien is also, more importantly, great fun to watch. The shock value of the film still remains even if you've seen it many times. In particular the famous alien-bursting-through-stomach scene is still really nasty - you almost believe that John Hurt is going to be fine and then ... well you know what happens next!

Sarah Woolner
EUFS Programme 1998-99

In space no one can hear you scream. Obliged to investigate signals from a nearby planet, the crew of the commercial spacecraft Nostromo become unwitting recipients of a lethal cargo, resulting in an influential, hawser-taut thriller which saw Ridley Scott hit the big time, and which spawned three sequels

Scott is an intelligent director with more than just chic visual style, consistently acquiring and blending great talent in his films. Alien, in which he marshals a first-rate production team, is a prime example of this. Impressive and effective sound is complimented by Jerry Goldsmith's discreet music which deftly links such disparate scenes as the crew rising from hyper-slumber, and John Hurt's shock discovery of the beast within; smart editing, cinematography and design are matched by enduring alien effects by H. R Geiger and Carlos Rambaldi. Even so, the creature not fully revealed until the end, holding the suspense and avoiding two common pitfalls: showing a turkey, and too soon.

Apparently, the cast were not privy to this, and their only hint came from Dark Star writer Dan O'Bannon sniggering nearby. Said cast include such as Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm Yaphet Kotto - along with Hurt and Sigourney Weaver.

Unashamedly commercial, Alien was regarded as pointless, if accomplished in 1979. The critics have since found their subtext - sexual of course (touted as vagina dentata). There is, for example. a where science officer Ash attempts to ram pornography down Ripley's throat before expiring in a pool of semen-coloured blood. And there was talk of Hawksian characters, but Ridley Scott would probably shrug.

Review by Gio MacDonald
Taken from EUFS Programme 1994-95