The xenomorph, the now given name of the creature in the movie Alien, has become such a part of pop culture, it is almost impossible to convey how new and terrifying it was in 1979. The entire story behind Alien, and how the creatures breed, is now part of the zeitgeist, too. As such, it is hard to remember how revolutionary, how innovative, and how amazing the movie was when it first came out.
A Simple Story
The fact is, the first Alien is a simple story. It's a monster story. Monster gets into a confined place where there are a bunch of people who must now find a way to survive the monster and try to kill it before it kills all of them. There you go, that's the entire plot, but the fact is, Ridley Scott managed to make Alien so tense, so terrifying, and so different in many ways, it changed sci-fi and horror. There have been countless copycats since, but nothing has ever approached the original.
Revolutionary
I was all of 8-years-old when the movie came out. Already, it was being talked about and I remember when my parents and my aunt and uncle came over for a dinner party and started talking about the movie. The scene they could not stop talking about? The chest-bursting scene.
Me, being a macabre little kid, was fascinated. I wanted to see the movie so bad, but despite my parents letting me into R-rated movies way before I should have been and despite the full on journey into the realm of horror I would take in a couple of years, did not let me see this movie in theaters. I just had to do with the periphery.
That means, I had an alien Xenomorph doll or action figure. It was glorious and you could hit a button on the back of its head and the teeth shot out from the mouth. I had my parents describe almost the entire movie to me, so I knew how it was going to go down by the time I saw it.
I also had some kind of view Master-style movie thing that showed clips from the film, minus the gore. I watched that thing like crazy.
Finally, my dad had a subscription to some film magazine and inside one issue were all of the HR Giger drawings of the alien creature and I studied them as if I were being graded on it. I know what the face-huggers looked like, and the chestburster and the full grown alien.
Finally Got to See it
Eventually, this amazing thing called "video rental stores" opened and one of the first ones we rented was Alien. I finally got to see it in all its glory. I was captivated, scared, and thrilled. For about a year, Alien was my favorite movie of all time, doing the impossible and supplanting Jaws. That eventually changed, but Alien is probably still within the top 5 and, on some days, number two for sure.
Why Alien Works
The movie just works perfectly as a thriller. The alien creature is unlike anything else that you've seen before. Yeah, sure, you can have your Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, but the xenomorph was utterly terrifying. It starts out violating a person, pushing an embryo down the throat of the victim, keeping the victim alive, and then explodes from within as a new form. It then grows, becoming a huge, almost un-killable destruction machine with a kind of unmatched hostility that few monsters have.
There is no cute back story for these things. It was not a child who drowned in a pond while the camp counselors had sex. This is a creature of pure death, wanting only to kill anything and everything that was not itself.
For me, Alien is about as close to a perfect movie as you can get. Horror and mystery and tension lurks around every corner. The creature could be anywhere, and the set designs, camera work and acting all meld together to create a fully believable world that becomes utterly terrifying.
It's even got a cat in it, for you cat lovers.
The Symbolism Came Later
These days, people who want to be snooty about the film try to find the deeper meaning. Sadly, I think Ridley Scott read one too many of these essays and created the dreadful Prometheus and Alien: Covenant movies. I have read that the entire movie is all about rape, and sexual violence. First, the creature violates Kane, by shoving something down his throat to implant the embryo. Then the creature has somewhat phallic-like inner teeth that shoot out and violate its victims. Finally, the ending scene with the creature and Lambert seems to indicate the creature violates her in some way before killing her.
You can go reading all of that into this if you want. For me, Alien is just a great monster movie. It follows the Jaws example by keeping the creature hidden for most of the movie. We see parts of it, but cannot put it all together into what the monster is for most of the movie. We only truly see the full body at the very end.
It Gave the World Ripley
Another great thing about the movie is that it gave us one of the greatest female superheroes - Ripley. It also helped introduce the world to the terrific actress Sigourney Weaver, but the character of Ripley is just totally bad ass. She takes charge when she needs to, shows fear, but then overcomes it to show initiative to get rid of the creature at the end. In the sequels we learn she can basically drive or pilot any vehicle and learn how to operate just about any piece of technology she's presented with.
The character of Ripley has become as iconic as the creature itself. She is at the heart of this franchise and is probably why many for the movies without her fail so hard.
The Sequels and Prequels
I won't go into these too much, but the rest of the series is a bit hit or miss. Aliens manages to be pretty good, despite going full action film and dropping much of the horror. Alien3 is not quite as bad as people remember it. and Alien: Resurrection just adds all sorts of weirdness that make it watchable if not entirely as great as the ones before it.
The prequels, sadly, add too much nonsense. We wanted more Alien with Prometheus and we got...something else and it was not as good.
I won't even talk about the Alien vs. Predator abominations.
Celebrating Alien
It is hard to imagine that 45 years have gone by since Alien burst (pardon the pun) onto the scene. Now, we have a new movie and it is earning rave reviews for paying fan service to the previous movies, but by keeping things simple. It returns to the things that made Alien great - a monster loose on a spaceship while the crew tries to survive.
Everything about the original Alien works and that is hard to come by in films. The characters are believable and real. The monster is truly innovative and utterly terrifying. The special effects are practical and also terrifying, creating something that feels real and dangerous. The soundtrack works, as do the periods of silence. Hell, even the original movie trailer has become a classic and the tagline for the film (In space, no one can hear you scream) is iconic.
So, I wanted to take a moment to celebrate Alien. It's truly one of the best sci-fi/horror movies, but one of the best movies ever, as well. I can't wait to see the new one, and I hope we get more stories in the same universe that remember what made the original great.
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