Alien (1979): Favourite Films Series

Alien (1979): Favourite Films Series

When I was ten years old, a movie came out late in the summer that only one kid in my class had seen, but he told everyone about it. The movie was called Alien vs. Predator, a title that stuck in my mind. What kind of alien? Why was it fighting a predator? What sort of predator? My imagination ran wild, and when I saw the DVD cover at the video store, I was both creeped out and intrigued. 

I watched it about a year later with a couple friends who were vaguely familiar with both the Alien and Predator franchises, but I was going into it fresh. The only knowledge I had was what they told me. The movie blew my mind, and I quickly rented every other film in both franchises from the video store. I started with Alien, which I had been asking my mom to rent for me years before AVP came out, but she always told me it was too scary. Finally, she’d relented. 

When I watched it for the first time, I found it slow and dull, especially in comparison to Alien vs. Predator. I reacted the same way actress Carrie Henn did when she had to watch it before playing the role of Newt in the sequel, Aliens. This was supposed to be scary? Far from it.   

For my birthday the next year, I received Alien vs. Predator and Alien on DVD. I was excited about one of them, not so much the other, but out of curiosity, I re-watched Alien. Still, I found it dull in comparison to AVP. There wasn’t enough action. It was mostly just people talking and walking around a space ship. 

I watched all of the Alien films again a couple years later in order of release date with a couple friends, one of whom had never seen any of them. He thought the first movie was boring and slow, but I found that, while yes, it was slow, there was something suspenseful about waiting to see the creature, and then to never really see it at all? It was a little disappointing, and yet, for some reason, it was also a little scarier. Where was it the whole time you weren’t seeing it? You knew it was on ship, somewhere, but where? You never were sure, exactly. It made me watch the movie more carefully, to see if I had missed a glimpse of it when watching it before. 

We progressed to Aliens, which I liked a lot more, but Alien didn’t leave my mind. It lurked in the background. The giant derelict ship. The facehugger exploding out of the egg. The chestburster erupting from Kane’s chest. The alien leaping at Dallas in the air duct, which looked like it was trying to give him a hug (both a scary and funny moment). The ship self-destructing in an over-the-top, unending explosion. Ripley slowly getting into the space suit. All this haunting imagery, which I had barely noticed the first couple times, now stuck. 

Many years and many repeated viewings later, my feelings on the Alien series have changed significantly.  The two Alien vs. Predator movies were entertaining on the surface, but nothing more than generic creature feature fare. Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection? Mediocre sequels. Aliens I always loved, but Alien, the one that had at first disappointed me, only became more and more interesting. As I learned about the history of the film and watched more and more horror movies, I realized Alien was one of the smartest, most-original horror movies ever made. 

The parts of Alien that frustrated me as a kid no longer do, but they were almost all regarding the pacing and special effects. Admittedly, a number of the effects don’t hold up anymore, such as the aforementioned ship explosion and moment when the alien attacks Dallas, or when Ash is revealed to be an android. But it doesn’t take away from the entertainment value of the movie, and most of the effects that really matter—the creature, the Nostromo’s interior, even the shots of the Nostromo moving through space—look as good today as they did back in 1979. Special effects don’t always make or break a movie, however. What “makes” Alien (and keeps it from breaking) is the perfect trifecta of writing, directing, and acting. 

There’s a reason the Alien franchise is still continuing to this day, and that reason is the title creature. The basic concept for it is a creative masterwork. It evokes fear in ways few other cinematic extraterrestrials can. The idea of something having so many varied stages to its life cycle is weird and unsettling in itself, but the way the alien gets aboard the ship is the truly scary part. In the fifties and sixties, alien invasion movies usually had aliens invading earth with big ships and laser beams, but here, the alien invades us. It’s so personal and invasive and violent, you can’t help but be terrified. 

The creature’s adult form, while certainly scary thanks to H.R. Giger’s nightmarish design, works as well as it does because of how little we see it. It’s not quite like in Jaws, where the less we see, the scarier it remains, because when we see the shark in Jaws, we see that yes, it is indeed a shark, and that’s about the extent of it. But when we see the alien, we aren’t even sure what we’re seeing. A close-up of an eyeless face and silver teeth dripping with slime. A long tail with a point at the end. What are the things on its back? Are those pipes? Wait, how many fingers does it have? Is it human-like, or bug-like, or kind of mechanical? Or all three? By not getting a clear, steady shot of the creature from head-to-toe, it dually provokes more fear and more curiosity. I have no doubt that Ridley Scott’s decision to shoot the creature the way he did is what led to it becoming so iconic and returning for so many sequels. 

As great as the creature’s concept and execution were, it would’ve been totally ineffective had the human characters not been compelling. There isn’t much information divulged about them, but it’s largely thanks to the charismatic actors and their chemistry together that they really come to life and seem believable. These are average Joes at work. They just happen to work on a space ship. We’re given enough time with them to understand their dynamic and feel like we know them before things go south, making everything that happens after that more interesting and more impactful.     

I can’t convince someone that Alien isn’t boring if that’s what they think of it. But if you really tune in to the story and feel of the movie, I don’t see how it couldn’t be scary, or at least entertaining. It’s a slow-burn, for sure, but every time I re-watch it, it feels faster paced, for some reason. Maybe it’s because of the elaborate set designs, or the little improvised lines of dialogue that are sometimes so quiet you have to make an effort to hear them. The first time seeing it, it’s all about the suspense of not knowing what’s going to happen. The second time, it’s knowing what’s coming and waiting for it. Every subsequent time, for me, is about seeing how the story progresses, noticing the tiny details, and revelling in the incredibly well-crafted scenes that have been burned into my mind, and the minds of so many other Alien fans.   

I could divulge every little facet of what makes Alien one of my favourite films, but what it comes down to, is it’s really a simple movie. Seven people on a space ship. One alien. They have to survive. That’s about it. The realism, the build-up of tension, and the intensity all make it work to maximum effect. It may not be quite as scary today as it was upon release, and that might have something to do with the mystery being peeled away with every subsequent sequel and prequel and spin-off. No matter how many more times the xenomorph bursts onto cinema screens, the original film will still stand as one of the greatest horror movies ever.