Let's Talk About Alien

Let’s talk about Alien.

The latest spin of the “Wheel of Death” at Little Bracket of Horrors gave the team, Alien

At its essence, Alien is a haunted house film. The Nostromo is the house. The crew is the family and, of course, the alien is the ghost, haunting everyone.

Filled with claustrophobic, visceral fear which permeates the characters and audience from the first scenes, Alien oozes with violent peril and death. Even the opening shots panning through an empty ship creates an uneasiness that never lets up, especially when the unknown threat appears. Afterall, don’t we all fear what happens while we are sleeping, when we’re at our most vulnerable?

And what a threat this is! The alien hits a deep seeded fear within each of us, that some outside force will make their way into our bodies (disease, cancer, or parasite) and wreck havoc from within. It makes us feel especially vulnerable. Add it all happening on a ship in deep space, as far away from help as you can imagine, and you’ve created a terror in the souls of your audience that will stay with them for rest of their lives.

This is the genius of Ridley Scott. The film is shot in a dark, claustrophobic way. The viewer simply does not know what to expect around every corner and it could be their worst nightmare. He brilliantly shoots the alien in pieces, never showing the full creature. You see flashes of parts of this thing, usually the most dangerous parts, and your imagination fills in the rest.

Additionally, Scott takes a page from the playbook of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by killing, fairly early on, the character you think is the main character, Dallas. Pivoting to Ripley to solve everyone’s problems and defeat the threat. This adds an edge to the movie. No one is safe. The alien could get anyone. There is no “protagonist armor” (as my son calls it) in this story.

Even the Nostromo can be seen as a character itself, mirroring the fears of the crew and audience. It is a broken down, falling apart ship, like a person fighting a disease. It’s not ironic that Dallas scrambles through the air ducts, the guts, of the ship and encounters the alien there, the same place the alien grew inside Kane, his guts. The ship’s fragile state mirrors that of the humans inside. At any moment, they can fall apart like their ship is falling apart.

Speaking of guts, let’s talk a minute about that famous chestburster scene. It’s telling that it happens around the dinner table, a place where a person (including the audience) is focused most on their stomachs. This increases the revulsion factor of the scene. Making you want to throw up your popcorn and Twizzlers as it’s happening.

All of this adds up to one frightening film filled with a slimey terror which stays with you for years.

Best Quote:

Ripley: "Don't worry, Parker, yeah. You'll get whatever's coming to you."

I give this film, four and a half out of five stabs. A classic scare!