Alien

As I stated last year, I will be discontinuing “Halloween Month” as a month long marathon. Now, it will either be on a franchise that will be spread out throughout the month or the traditional Friday reviews. To start off that tradition, I will be reviewing a series of films that I have wanted to review since I started “Halloween Month.” Let’s kick things off with one of the best films ever made, “Alien,” released in 1979.

Mike started his review out by admitting, “When Alien was released, I had not yet succumbed to the power of the horror film. It was not until later that a friend of mine suggested that I rent it. I did so more out of respect for my friends taste than anything else because I was not a big sci-fi fan either. I discovered why I considered him a friend after viewing this masterpiece.”

The film begins on a quiet mining ship, the Nostromo, flying through space heading back towards Earth. The command and control computer system, Mother, receives a distress signal from a nearby planet, flies the Nostromo to that planet, and starts to wake up the crew from hypersleep to investigate.

Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Kane (John Hurt) and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) go to the planet surface and start their search. It looks like a vessel has crash landed with no survivors. While searching the vessel they find a room filled with pods that, when looking closer, have living beings inside like an egg. When one of these “eggs” starts to open, Kane looks inside and is attacked.

Dallas and Lambert hurry back to the ship holding Kane but Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, and will not let them back in without a mandatory quarantine for at least an entire day. After a lot of back and forth arguing, Ash, the ship’s doctor, played by Ian Holm, avoids procedure and opens the door to let them back in.

Once in the sickbay, Kane’s helmet is removed the crew finds what is called a “facehugger” attached to his face. When someone tries to remove the facehugger, it squeezes itself around Kane’s neck. However, there was nothing to worry about because after sometime the facehugger dies and falls off anyway, leaving Kane with nothing to worry about.

While the crew is eating their last meal before going back into hypersleep for their return to Earth, Kane starts to have spasms that end with an alien bursting out of his chest and running off while the rest of the crew just stand around in awe. The rest of the film starts with them trying to capture the “Xenomorph” alien, and ends with them trying to just escape the Nostromo alive.

Mike admitted, “When I first began watching Alien I had a suspicion that I was not watching your average ordinary sci-fi movie. As a matter of fact, I have had many an argument with others debating the possibility that Alien is not a sci-fi movie at all but rather a full fledge horror film that just happens to be set in outer space. How can I make that blatant a presumption you might ask? Because Ridley Scott could take this very same screenplay and with a few changes base it any place and any time and it would still work.”

Mike goes on to say, “I became a huge Ridley Scott fan after watching Alien, and remain one to this day.” A successful quality was made from the beginning and director Ridley Scott gave the film almost a documentary look that succeeds in making the audience feel closer to the action then they felt.

The entire credit cannot be given to Scott alone, however. Jerry Goldsmith’s score, Michael Seymour’s design and H.R. Giger’s originality put together to make a film that will go into the history as a classic to learn from. Just a reminder: this was made before CGI. Everything was done with costumes, models and other filming methods. Mike ended his review by asking, “I cannot see where someone could honestly call themselves a “horror freak” and not enjoy Alien. But that is just my opinion.”

If you haven’t seen this film yet, stop reading the review and go out and watch it. This is one of the best films ever made and still holds up to this very day. You will definitely get a good scare from watching this movie. Just like the taglines say, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” That is true because if you get lost in space and get in serious trouble, there is no one around to help you out, which is actually the scariest thing that can happen. This is one of those films that you should never miss.

With that one done, check in Wednesday where we talk about the sequel in this year’s “Halloween Month.”