Alien (1979)

 

Alien happens to be one of The Boyfriend’s favorite movies. He’s seen it dozens of times (so I’ve seen it many times as well), and he’s seen every film in the series (so far). We had the chance in early 2024 to see it in a theater for the first time, and seeing it on the big screen just reinforces my opinion of it being one of the most tense and claustrophobic horror/science fiction films of all time. Seven people are on board the spaceship Nostromo coming back to Earth when they receive a distress signal from an isolated – and, it turns out, quite inhospitable – planet. They detour to help and find some very bizarre architecture and a ton of large, mysterious eggs, one of which opens up and reaches into the helmet of John Hurt’s Kane and into his body. Thus, we are introduced to the title menace, at this point in the form of what’s become known as a “face hugger.” A bit later, after a false sense of security gets built up, we get to meet the “chest bursting” form of the alien, also thanks to Hurt and one of the grossest scenes in film, and I mean that in a good way. Things don’t exactly get better after that, as we in the audience start to watch a space version of “And Then There Was One.” Each member of the crew but one meets a particularly grisly ending, and although we now think of Sigourney Weaver as a movie star, when this film was made we had no sense that her Ripley would become such an iconic and heroic figure. Thanks to Weaver’s fearless performance, we now have one of the greatest female badasses ever to appear in a science fiction/horror film. At the time of filming, Hurt and Tom Skerritt (who plays Dallas) were perhaps the best-known actors in the cast, and the rest (Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto) were respected character actors. Everyone is well chosen here, and their group dynamic is one of the highlights of the movie. Aside from the monster itself – whose appearance is gradually revealed as the movie progresses until we get to see the full extent of its spectacular horrible appearance – the other truly great attribute of Alien is its production design. The spaceship is a maze of dark interiors, the depiction of which is clearly heavily indebted to the artwork of H.R. Giger (as is the monster’s look). The film’s visuals are also heavily influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey; only two areas are brightly lit, and they’re communal spaces – for a reason. There are enough plot twists and shocking reveals aboard the Nostromo to make Alien interesting even if you’ve seen it dozens of times, and the fact that it keeps spawning sequels and prequels is just more evidence of how much of a cultural impact it’s had.

Oscar Win: Best Visual Effects

Other Oscar Nomination: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration