Today I'm happy to bring you another great guest post. This time Jordan Siron joins us to rekindle our love for the original "Alien" movie. I remember being seriously freaked out after watching Alien as a small kid, and it still remains one of my personal favorite scary sci-fi movies.
As a fan of science fiction, it shames
me to admit that I had not once watched the Ridley Scott classic
Alien over the past six years. For sci-fi fans, that is
essentially akin to a gambler saying he hasn’t stepped foot in Las
Vegas since Frank Sinatra used to roam the strip.
It isn’t that I didn’t love and
respect the film, but my focus had drifted elsewhere for a moment.
However, upon hearing murmurs regarding the in-production prequel
(Prometheus) that should hit theatres next year, I knew I had
to revisit my old friend.
How does Alien stack up after
all of these years? Is it still the classic example of space-horror
as so many have claimed? The answer, of course, is a resounding
“Yes!”, and here’s why.
The Story
Not that any one here needs any
reminding, but in case we have uninformed readers checking this out:
A salvage crew is returning to Earth when they receive a distress
call from a stranded space ship. One of the crew picks up a
stomach-dwelling alien hitchhiker, and it wreaks havoc on the rest of
the crew.
The premise is simple enough, taking a
page out of the popular conceit that, until previously, had been
reserved for horror movies. Instead of a group of teens stuck in a
secluded cabin/haunted house, Ridley Scott and writer Dan O’Bannon
give us a crew of surly adults trapped in the seemingly endless ocean
of space and time. When Hell breaks loose, our cast of survivors has
literally no escape.
This re-invention of the narrative
wheel allows for perfectly paced terror, making use of the narrow
passages of the story’s setting to masterfully ratchet up the
tension to unhealthy levels. The minds behind the film obviously used
their rustic, lived in space ship as an embellishment rather than a
crutch or gimmick (which cannot be said for most
science-fiction/horror movies being made these days). The result is a
cripplingly horrific experience that feels as real as it does
terrifying.
The Cast
Part of the reason the story sings as
well as it does is because of the talent Scott found to play the
ensemble cast. Instead of filling the film with MTV-bred tweens,
Ridley Scott cast actors who (with the help of wardrobe and makeup)
fit right in with the dirty, grungy setting. That isn’t to say that
any of the actors are particularly ugly, but they aren’t top models
either.
Perhaps the perfect example of the
inspired casting would be the always-enjoyable Harry Dean Stanton as
one of the two blue-collar maintenance men. Spending most of his time
in the engine room of the crusty salvaging vessel, his face and body
language mirror his surroundings perfectly; spindly, covered in
grease, and constantly smoking.
The rest of the cast (including
Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holme, and John Hurt) turns their characters
into fully formed human beings. When we see the group interacting
with one another, we believe these people exist, and that they have
grown very familiar with one another. It really says something when a
cast can make every day life interesting for a whole thirty minutes
before the scares start coming.
The Cinematography/Design
Alien is an absolutely gorgeous
film – very light praise considering that every shot is filled with
grease, steam, sweat, and (eventually) blood. There’s nothing
inherently beautiful about those elements, but cinematographer Derek
Vanlint lit every scene so masterfully that the viewer wants
to see them all collide amidst the chaos.
Another thing that Alien gets
right visually is that it has the benefit of standing out in a genre
that usually favors sterile white sets. Think about most recent
sci-fi films (like, say, the 2009 Star Trek). Think about
their ship designs; mostly clean, sleek, and untouched. The same
cannot be said for Alien, which gives us a blue-collar
spaceship that looks so lived in, so used, and so real that we can
practically smell the place.
This seems to be a recurring strength
of Ridley Scott’s, but it’s especially grand considering this was
one of his earlier films – let alone a “simple” story about an
alien creature killing humans left and right. It certainly does the
film a great deal of justice, and elevates it to something far better
than it had any logical right to be.
Perhaps the worst thing I can say about
Alien is that it is too good. Sounds like a strange complaint,
but hear me out: I know that many people consider Aliens (the
James Cameron sequel) to be their favorite of the franchise, but I
resent it for abandoning the tone and thrill of the first film.
Pretty much every sequel that has followed in Alien’s
footsteps has been a stripped down version that replaces terror for
action.
While this wouldn’t be a problem were
Alien not such a different film, it seems to me like an
opportunity wasted. With the right story and a less spastic director
behind the wheel, any sequel could have delivered on the promise of
the original.
As it is, even after six years of
collecting dust on my shelf, Alien remains the timeless
classic it has been branded as since it first hit theaters.
Jordan Siron is a freelance writer
living in Florida. In his free time he promotes online
printing.
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