#59 Alien

In Summary

Set in a small, cramped and decaying space-ship, Alien offers an unglamorous vision of space exploration. To the crew on board the Nostromo, space travel is simply a job, and a poorly paid one at that.

Much of the opening half of the film is focused on establishing the dynamics between the crew as they have to detect a transmission from an obscure moon. There is little sense of action and the protagonist of the film is yet to be determined. Nonetheless, it is the combination of this scene-setting and the uncertainty of not knowing who is and isn't important enough to the plot to survive that heightens the tension of the second-half of the film.

The mission begins to come a cropper once the crew stumble across some alien eggs, with a crew member being attacked, by a horrifying face-hugging creature. These transgressive bodily attacks by the alien are what Alien is best remembered for. There is something especially vicious about both the face-hugger and then the chest-bursting attacks, these ungodly, un-humanly violations of the body.

The rest of the film follows the dwindling crew as they are picked off one-by-one by this horrifyingly omnipotent alien. Hurtling through the loneliness of space, the crew are trapped inside this metal can awaiting their fate.

As the stakes ramp up further, it is Ripley, the female officer, who emerges as the one with the power and wits to best this alien. Putting a female character in the lead not only plays with expectations but also makes use of a sense of inherent vulnerability in the protagonist that assures that the odds for victory seem narrow.

Alien is a claustrophobic and tense affair set in the majesty of outer space, crossing several boundaries in film-making while following the techniques of some of the masters of old.

A Memorable Quote

Final report of the commercial starship Nostromo, third officer reporting. The other members of the crew... are dead. Cargo and ship destroyed. I should reach the frontier in about six weeks. With a little luck, the network will pick me up. This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.

Things You May Not Know

• The concept of the alien bleeding acid came as a method to get around the notion that the crew should just shoot the alien.
• Harrison Ford turned down the role of Captain Dallas, played in the film by Tom Skerritt.
• A male character was specifically chosen to be the victim of the face-hugging and chest-bursting attacks, firstly to defy expectations of female characters being the easy first target, secondly, as the sexual nature of the attacks were deemed inappropriate on a female character,  and finally, to unsettle male viewers.  

One of the Greatest of All Time?
One of the most remarkable things about Alien is that the concept of a horror film set in space remains, to this day, a unique one. It is that claustrophobic and lonely atmosphere that makes Alien especially intense, there is no outside help available to a crew who face a killing machine that is nigh-on impossible to stop.

Combine that with the visual imagery created by Ridley Scott and you get an incredibly memorable, yet somehow stripped-down and focused, viewing experience. Alien manages to leave its viewers with some striking images along while remaining the intense horror that it sets out to be.