Alien
(1979)
In
space no one can hear you scream
Director - Ridley Scott
Writers - Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett
Starring
- Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry
Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Bolaji Badejo
– Alien, Helen Morton – Mother, Eddie Powell -
Alien
Review by Noel Bailey
Inspirational sci-fi/horror that launched a thousand rip-offs!
To judge
ALIEN against its sequels is to blame Eve for handing Adam
that damned Granny Smith! Without Ridley Scott's masterpiece,
there would BE no sequels!
ALIEN
is almost 24 years old and stands even now as the benchmark
for films of this ilk. Even the fabulously entertaining ALIENS
did not (and nor did it TRY) replicate its claustrophobic
fear, its style, its inventiveness. Ridley Scott is a one-of-a-kind
director. Like Stanley Kubrick (and I do not seek to equate
them here) he has an individuality that comes through in his
movies and stamps them as being HIS alone. ALIEN, LEGEND,
BLADE RUNNER and of course GLADIATOR all bear the mark. The
sensitivity, the human angle, the unique (at some point) blue
lit filtered backdrop. He is an artiste!
ALIEN
has dated very little, evidenced only by the youth of the
actors. Can anyone see a similarity (more-so in attitude)
between the young Sigourney Weaver and Jane Fonda in her youth?
The bridge
of the Nostromo, made up primarily from electronic junk lying
around the place was innovative (agreed, "Mother"
looks rather old hat, especially with her clunky old DOS interface!)
The storyline has been re-hashed so many times since, but
in 1979 it was fresh and cutting-edge stuff. The interior
of the alien craft with the 'space jockey' was a jaw-dropping
visual and the barely-glimpsed alien, fear incarnate! Not
too many bio-mechanical twin jaw chompers before IT! The ONLY
time the alien looked even vaguely suss was when Ripley blasted
it out of the airlock. Just for a second one had an impression
of the old "man-in-a-suit" routine!
Characterizations
were superb, as they were in ALIENS! The demise of Lambert
particularly, brings the horror of the alien confrontingly
close to the viewer. Electronic sound fx and the musical score
serve to heigten suspense at key moments, of which there are
several. In the upshot however, the film belongs to Weaver
as Ripley (although a young Ian Holm is brilliant as Ash -
watch his facial expressions!) a model of constructive thinking,
resourcefulness and bravery.
No,
they don't come much better than this!
Review by Gary F Taylor
Alien (1979)
Iconographic Horror,
ALIEN received mixed reviews when it debuted in 1979--largely from science fiction critics, who accused it of being little more than a sort of Friday the 13th in Outer Space, a blood-and-gore horror flick given a futuristic twist via special effects. But while these accusations have more than a little truth, it has been an incredibly influential film--and even today, in the wake of CGI effects, it still holds up extremely, extremely well.
The story is well known: the crew of an interstellar craft responds to what seems a distress signal, only to encounter a remarkably lethal alien life form that boards their ship and sets about picking them off one by one. Some of the special effects are weak (the alien spacecraft and the android "revival" are fairly notorious). There is little in the way of character development, the seventies film has a fairly slow pace, and the story itself is predictable; you can usually guess who is going to die next.
BUT. The art designs are incredible: the entire look of the film, from the commercial nature of the spacecraft to the iconographic alien itself (brilliantly envisioned by Giger) is right on the money. Director Ridley Scott encouraged his cast to ad lib from the script, and the result is a shocking sense of realism--and the somewhat slow pace of the film and the predictability of the story gives it a sense of relentless and ever-mounting paranoia that is greatly enhanced by the tight sets and camera set-ups. With its odd mixture of womb-like organics and cold mechanics, ALIEN is a seventies film calculated to send even the most slightly claustrophobic viewer into a fit of hysteria.
The entire cast, led by Tom Skerrit and Sigorney Weaver, is very, very good--and the film abounds with memorable images and scenes ranging from John Hurt's encounter with the alien egg to Skerrit's search of the ship air ducts to Weaver's terrifying race against time as the ship counts down to self-destruct. Seldom has any film been so consistent in design, cast, direction, and out-and-out fear factor, and although certain aspects of ALIEN are open to legitimate criticism the end result is powerful enough to bring it in at a full five stars. A word of warning, however: you'll need to send the kids to bed for this one. And you'll probably be up half the night afterward yourself! Recommended.
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