Alien

Film number three on our 100 movies bucket list is Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien. A film that spawned a series of sequels of varying quality and endless parodies.

The crew of the Nostromo are in hibernation as their ship pilots them back toward earth. However, when they wake they find the ship has re-directed them after picking up a signal from a nearby planet. Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) heads the team down to the surface to investigate. While exploring a ship they discover, Kane (John Hurt) finds a “cave” full of “eggs” which, when he gets too close to one, triggers the creature inside to attack him. On return to the ship, science officer Ash (Ian Holm) ignores Ripley’s (Signourney Weaver) command to quarintine the ground crew and instead brings them onboard to treat the injured Kane, but with them he also brings the Alien, which puts the entire crew at risk.

Alien in reaity is a B-Movie horror, wrapped inside a 1970’s sci-fi. It borrows hugely from Star Wars in the look of the Nostromo and from any number of B-Movies where the merciless monster hunts down its prey. But that’s not to say it doesn’t do it well, using the isolation of space and claustrophobia of the ship to good effect. You can imagine the impact on a cinema audience in 1979 who would not have seen anything like it.

For me though, Alien has not aged particuarly well, especially compared to some of its contempories. While the ships practical effects look great, some others are a little comical, as is some of the script. With it once or twice “jumping the shark”, which is unneccsary as the central premise is good enough. That alongside the Alien itself, shown only in flashes to maintain its mystery, which helps build the tension and keeps the audience on edge.

You can see why Alien maintains its cult status and is fondly remembered and would have been a huge thrill to audiences at the time. However fourty years later some of the story and effects do creak at the seams. But as a sci-fi horror it still stands up and shows that in space nobody can hear you scream!