Alien

Recent news that Ridley Scott would be directing an Alien prequel made me curious to visit his original sci-fi horror masterpiece, and it really is a stunner. It combats cliches, piles on an incredible amount of atmosphere, and sports several great performances. It really is a modern masterpiece.

The film follows the crew of the mining vessel Nostromo who are on there way home in stasis having completed their original task. However the ship receives a distress signal from a nearby planet and they stop to investigate. Needless to say this leads to nothing positive. Some exploded stomachs later the crew is trapped in space with a bloodthirsty alien hiding in the ventilation.

The main thing that stands out while you watch the film is the sets. Scott constructed massive sets to compose the ship and they are truly impressive things. The set of the crashed ship on the alien planet is particularly impressive with towering walls and creepy engravings. Even the ship that they pilot is frightening. The walls are pitch black and covered in markings, tubes and notches. Not only does it almost seem to provide camouflage for the alien, it creates a mood of fear and evil that can't be matched by any other film I've ever seen. It's refreshing in a time were so many movies are filled with artificiality to have these very real and impressive backgrounds.

Another thing that is impressive is the remarkable restraint of Scott. He sets up a scenario where their ship is trapped for 17 hours on an alien planet and you'd expect to have it become a fight for survival on their planet. But he waits a full hour before having any blood actually spilled. He simply drenches you in atmosphere so by the time the violence arrives you're scared out of your mind. Another example of this is the presence of the alien. It's only actually shown a couple times mainly because the puppetry wasn't advanced enough to have it be shown on screen for a long time, but because of this it undertakes a Psycho like vibe where you're more scared of what's off screen then you ever are when it's actually in front of you.

Even the special effects have aged quite well. With the exception of a few scenes (the fake decapitated head of Ash looks nothing like Ian Holm) everything looks very good and the alien is truly a very monstrous and terrifying thing. All in all this is a very thrilling and visceral movie, even though it was made 30 years ago, and I highly recommend it.

(Warning: Scene is a wee bit graphic.)