Alien (1979) - Review

Director: Ridley Scott | Written by Dan O'Bannon | 115m

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The time is the future. The crew aboard a massive, commercial space vehicle is en-route to earth with a load of extraterrestrial ore when they are sidetracked by mysterious signals from a nearby planet. The signals seem to be calls for help and when the space ship arrives they find a ruined, moldering spacecraft and within it egg-like living organisms.

- 20th Century Studios -

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Oh boy.

Friends, let me let you in on a little secret. This is my all time favourite film. So I need to preface this review by assuring that I'm not saying it's a great movie just because I like it; I'm saying I like it because it's a great movie. I have more memorabilia for this film than perhaps any other property, including about a dozen different copies of the home video release. Nothing quite beats seeing the movie on the big screen though; it's maybe the only way to emulate the searing brutality of its initial release. Now, having done so, I feel like I can review the movie properly. And damn, what a movie...

Set in the distant future, the film follows the crew of the Nostromo, a space tug towing mineral ore. Each is awakened from stasis after the Nostromo's MU-TH-UR AI detects a signal from nearby LV-426, a remote planetoid. The crew land on the planetoid to find the source of the signal, finding an enormous, derelict... erm, Derelict, containing a 'fossilised' Pilot and thousands of leathery eggs. After Kane (John Hurt) becomes host to an embryo, planted there by a Facehugger born out of one of the eggs, which quickly, let's say, 'leaves' Kane and grows into a ruthless Xenomorph that stalks the crew and kills them one by one.

There's not much you can say about Alien that you haven't already heard before; Ridley Scott in his second directorial outing finds his feet here as a horror maestro; the cast (including Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton and Sigourney Weaver in her debut role) are second-to-none, employed as 'truckers in space'. The sum of a great director and a cast who fall into their roles as though they've been playing them all of their lives is a masterclass in small-budget filmmaking.

It's the cast that really sells the film; Sigourney Weaver plays the 'lead', Ellen Ripley, in the first of a string of expert performances in the role. Much has been said about her revolutionary part as an action-heroine, putting her in the same league as others like Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor of the Terminator franchise. She is surrounded by an ace supporting cast whose characters barely enjoy one another's company; the truckers-in-space bicker and argue over things like their pay bonuses, as opposed to esoteric science fiction ramblings you often see in this kind of film. It's because of these characters, who are about as ill-prepared for their situation as their audience was to watch it, that Alien is elevated beyond just science fiction and horror, into near-drama. They're believable, they're somewhat relatable; they argue, fight and shout, though it's never frustrating; Veronica Cartwright's Lambert is another standout, acting like the audience for the other characters; she begs her peers to evacuate, blow up the ship, stop trying to trap it - she's the in-movie equivalent of the audience shouting at the screen.

And my, do the characters have an awesome set to act within. The Nostromo, the main location of the film, is brilliantly realised; Ron Cobb's industrial design went as far as creating an entire signage language to fully immerse the viewer into a completely coherent world. The lo-fi aesthetic, inspired in part by Star Wars' success two years earlier is grounded here in a grimy, sweaty ship that's barely held together by the sarcastic technicians Parker and Brett (Kotto and Stanton, respectively). The ship is dark, broken and in ways organic; there's plenty of places for biomechanics horrors to hide. Ridley expertly captures the ship, sympathetically and meticulously committing the intricate labyrinth of corridors, ladders and rooms in all of their minute details. The three minute opening montage is dedicated to nothing more than beautiful shots of the interior and exterior; in fact, there's no dialogue at all until nearly ten minutes into the film.

When the crew eventually does find itself on the surface of the planetoid, we're met with an even more amazing setting - this is a film called Alien, and dammit, this is one alien landscape...

The Alien, Space Jockey, Derelict and LV426 were all children of the beautiful mind of H.R. Giger, a Swiss surrealist who is famed for his biomechanoid, sexual imagery that combines the grotesque with the absurd to create some extraordinary images. He's used to great effect here; the Derelict is organic, otherworldly, and eerie. Ribcages line the walls and dim lights catch the slimy surfaces. His creature designs are horrific, from the Facehugger, which forces the seed of an alien embryo into a male victim, from whom the penis-like larvae of the alien violently bursts in the most disturbing birthing scene ever committed to film. "Kane's son", Ash describes the creature. The leathery eggs were toned down from their initial design in order to satiate Catholic censors by adding another slit to the opening petals, changing the appearance from a vulva to a cross. Genius.

Then, there's the Xenomorph itself - a monstrous creature with a set of teeth for a tongue, a phallic head with a real human skull visible beneath the forehead and a dripping, terrifying body that blends the mechanical with the organic to hide its form. Expertly designed by Giger, realised on screen as mechanical body parts created by Carlo Rambaldi and portrayed by Nigerian art student Bolaji Badejo, the combination is completed by being captured by Ridley Scott, who must have graduated from the Steven Spielberg School of Showing Your Villain - taking lessons from Jaws, Scott hides the Xenomorph in the shadows; here and there, you'll see the flash of an arm, or the spike of its tail, but the vast majority of it is hidden in shadow and within the twisting pipes of the ship. As it kills, Scott focuses on its rictus grin, the horror of its victims and then finally, a rapid crescendo as skulls are shattered by an almost pneumatic thrust of its inner mouth. It's a technique that serves the film well; tension ramps in quiet moments before erupting into sudden, explosive shocks (see: the aforementioned character deaths and the nail-biting egg sequence in the bowels of the Derelict.)

Alien is not afraid, however, to, let's say, throw blood at its actors. The oft-cited Chestburster scene is one of the finest sequences committed to film - as much of a shock the actors as it was to the audience, the scene opens almost serenely before signs begin to show that poor Kane, who has recently been freed from his Facehugger friend, is not feeling so well. A cough. A choke; he rises, screams and then falls. Cue instant terror, chaos and more blood than you can shake a stick at. It's a devastating scene, and at halfway through the entire movie, it really waits to strike. Where gore aficionados will relish in the streams of blood that shock, it's scenes of the alien stalking, hiding somewhere off-screen, that really work to terrorise. A tense scene of a crew member attempting to flush it out of the labyrinthine air ducts, armed only with a flamethrower, is one of the most tense scenes in the franchise; the orchestral score by Jerry Goldsmith rises and falls rapidly, then slowly. What's amazing here is that the Xenomorph is not seen until the final moments of the scene; the horror comes from not knowing exactly when, or if, it will show up. The claustrophobic duct sets combined with Ridley getting right into his actor's faces shrinks the action into moments and images that resonate.

Where the movie does dip into pure sci-fi, it does so sparingly. We're introduced to the Space Jockey, the pilot of the Derelict within which the distress signal and alien eggs are discovered, which hints at a hyper-intelligent lifeform, but does nothing to explain it. Even the characters find it unremarkable; "Looks like it's been dead a long time. Fossilised.", captain Dallas muses, clambering on its corpse like it's a plaything. Then, there's Ian Holm's Ash, who analyses the Xenomorph to understand it; he lightly exposits biological functions of the creature, never to the boredom of the audience. In fact, his peers quickly become satisfied with his explanations and frequently move on to their ever-evolving tactics to rid themselves of the alien. The science-heavy sections are light, easy and necessary, and they give way to a plot with a surprising amount of narrative heft - far from being just a 'Ten Little Indians' story, there's twists and turns abound, careering towards a finale (or two) with surprising pace.

When reviewing Alien as part of the broader franchise, it's plain to see that it is one of the best instalments. Aliens is often described as better, depending on who you ask; horror aficionados will guide you to Alien, whilst action fans will insist Aliens is superior. I'm the former, preferring the unique blend of horror and sci-fi that's been imitated, torn apart and stripped of its uniqueness by decades of follow-ups, imposters and a dumbing down of the genre it champions. Alien recently celebrated its 40th anniversary and saw a 4k release in cinema for a limited run, and having now seen it on the big screen, it's incredible how well the movie holds up; the Xenomorph never looks like a man in a suit, the scares are just as effective as ever and despite the occasional rough edge, it's an incredibly well put together film. Modern audiences may very well be distracted by the old-fashioned editing techniques, long shots and obscure sound mix, but these are the things that make the movie great; it's gritty, it's realistic and you're there. You're in the captain's seat descending to the planet; you feel like you're sat at the table as Kane gives birth. The film is, in Ash's immortal words;

A perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. I admire its purity. A survivor. Unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

Last word. I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies.

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Sam's Score: 9

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Alien is available on home media and most video streaming services.

All images © 20th Century Studios