Alien

Alien...1979...117 minutes...rated R...starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, and Ian Holm...written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett...directed by Ridley Scott

I'd be surprised if people don't know this one, but anyways: the crew of the Weyland-Yutani commercial towing vehicle Nostromo are awakened from suspension early by the ship's computer in response to intercepting a signal of unknown origin. According to company contracts, the crew must try to find the source of the signal or risk losing their shares of the profit, so the 7 members take part of the ship down to investigate. Part of the crew heads out onto the surface and discover a crashed alien spaceship. Warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) manages to figure out that the signal is not a distress call as originally thought but is instead a warning, but is deterred by the science officer from joining her companions. One of the three on the explorer team discovers a chamber filled with what looks like eggs...and gets far too close of an encounter with an alien life form. Hauling crew member Kane (and attached alien) back to the ship...and getting past quarantine with help by the science officer, the remaining crew blast off and get back to the rest of the ship left in orbit. Eventually the creature dies and Kane seems to recover. Everything's fine, right? Right?

So not right.

Now, you can argue that this movie is much closer to actual sci-fi then either of the previous selections I've brought up for genre blend movies, and I actually wouldn't argue that case. Certainly the writing is tighter and presents fewer glaring errors in the science to a layman like myself... except possibly in xenobiology, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. Still, small number of people in a group...limited space in which to move around and very limited options of leaving the ship...mysterious thing lurking in the dark corridors and air shafts...yeah, I'd say that Alien has several horror elements to it, and I don't feel the least bit bad in regarding it as a horror movie.

If you disagree, I suggest you watch the dinner sequence after Kane recovers from having an alien on his face. There's a reason that this segment is listed as one of the scariest movie moments, and even with repeated viewings it doesn't get old. Part of that comes from the excellent reactions of the actors...and no, they weren't really warned as to what was coming so I'm not sure you could call it acting. Pure science fiction doesn't tend to have such moments thrown into the mix like that.

Certainly the design of the alien itself is a source of nightmare. "Alien" introduced much of the world to the artistic imagination of H.R.Giger, and that imagination has produced several very interesting and disturbing pieces of art. Personally, the extra set of jaws in place of a tongue has always disturbed me...as well as just the overall look of the thing. I'll share something embarrassing: when the movie had come out, some company had actually produced an action figure of the creature. I didn't even want the miniature thing in the house; because while my conscious mind at that age knew very well that it was just a hunk of plastic...but I could imagine that thing scuttling around the house at night all too easily. No thanks.

Is it a good movie? Indeed. There's excellent casting, tight writing, a good pace of action, and some very disturbing creature effects played at just the right moments. Do I recommend it? Highly. This movie is one that launched an entire franchise, though each of the sequels has its own feel to it. The first is the scariest and in many ways the tightest of all of them.

I give this one 4 crashed spaceships out of 5.