Entry 50.1: Alien (1979)

Alien (1979)

Dir: Ridley Scott

"In space no one can hear you scream."



Hey ladies and gents, welcome to the moment I've been waiting for and you'll all be forced to tolerate or go find another shitty blog to read; my GIANT-SIZED, 5-part 50th entry!  For this momentous occasion, I'll be looking at each film in the Alien...Saga?  Legacy?  Whatever the fuck Fox is calling it these days.  I will, of course, be starting with 1979's Alien, which made an indelible impression upon my 9-year old psyche when I first saw it on video.  It's been "with me" ever since, and is one of my Holy Trinity of favorite movies of all time.  The first sequel, Aliens, is just as good but VERY different; after that, the franchise hits some rockier territory, but never ceases to be interesting...We'll get those in good time, however; tonight is all about Alien!

I should mention the slight format change first.  You'll notice the Basement of Sleaze has received a bit of a face lift-that's not intentional.  I encountered some "technical errors" that required reformatting/revising.  As to the entries themselves, I've decided that I want to try to post shorter entries more frequently (I'd like to get to at least two, if not three, a week).  Also, by popular request, I'll be embedding trailers when available.  I may try to go back and revise some of the older entries with trailers for future readers...Lastly, it's too early to say anything, but be on the lookout for some MAJOR changes to the Basement in the near future.  Now, grab your favorite snack, turn down the lights and journey into the darkest corner of space with Alien...

The crew of the commercial towing vehicle Nostromo-Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt, Up in Smoke, The Dead Zone), executive officer Kane (John Hurt, The Elephant Man, Hellboy), warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, Ghostbusters, The Year of Living Dangerously), science officer Ash (Ian Holm, Naked Lunch, The Lord of the Rings trilogy), navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright, Inserts, The Witches of Eastwick) engineer Parker (Yaphet Kotto, Live and Let Die, The Monkey Hustle) and technician Brett (Harry Dean Stanton, Paris, Texas, Repo Man) are awakened en route back to Earth in order to investigate a mysterious distress signal transmitting from an uncharted planet.  Exploring the surface, they discover a derelict spacecraft filled with giant, leather eggs.  One of these eggs "hatches," spurting forth a crablike monster that attaches itself to Kane's face.  Back aboard the Nostromo, the creature falls off of Kane's face and dies, but, in the film's most iconic sequence, a creature burst forth from Kane's chest during dinner, layed there as an embryo by the "facehugger."  This alien rapidly grows into a seven-foot monster that begins to pick off the crew one-by-one.  Further complicating matters, Ash is revealed to be an android spy sent by "the Company" to ensure the creature's return for study; he has been protecting it and isn't above attempting to off one of his shipmates in order to ensure the monster's survival.  In the end, Ripley is the unlikely lone survivor, forced into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the seemingly indestructible creature...

It's impossible for me to overstate the impact this movie has had on me; I first saw this movie at age nine and was both repulsed and completely fascinated by it.  I became obsessed with tracking down pieces of Alien merchandise (not an easy task in the late 80s/early 90s), I'd draw the creature over my school notebooks and went through a lengthy period where I watched either this movie or Aliens every day.  I credit this movie above all others for my love of the horror genre.  Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shussett's script is just a pastiche of It! The Terror from Beyond Space and Planet of the Vampires, but the becomes a wholly unique entity thanks to it's design, direction and performances.  One cannot over-praise the psychosexual, biomechanical alien planet and creature design by the late H.R. Giger.  There is, in fact, a layer of sexual unease that permeates the film, from the "rape" of Kane to the off-camera demise of Lambert (which is heard as a series of sexual-sounding noises) to the creature's seeming fascination with Ripley's half-naked body at the end of the film.  This gives the film a level of discomfort uncommon in "monster" movies, and it's regretful that the concept was abandoned to turn the creatures into so much cannon fodder in the sequels.  The adult creature itself, with it's phallic, eyeless head and rictus grin, is still terrifying, despite years of overexposure in sequels, comic books, toys and video games.  As frequently as Giger is praised, Nostromo designers Ron Cobb and Jean "Moebius" Giraud also deserve praise; the ship is a marvel of post-industrial, lived-in realism and, with it's cramped corridors, often-failing lights and gothic chambers, is a spooky, atmospheric locale even before the alien appears.  Scott directs this like a fucking champ, filling his widescreen frame with smoke, eerie blue light, strobes and grime.  With all due respect to Blade Runner, I think this is his best work.  The cast give uniformly great performances, with no showboating or scenery-chewing.  These naturalistic performances, coupled with Scott's
Howard Hawksian layered dialogue, give the film an almost documentary-like feel.  A true classic, just as effective today as the day it was released.  If you (somehow) haven't seen Alien, what the fuck are you waiting for?

As of this post, Alien is available in two versions; the original theatrical cut and a 2004 "Director's Cut," which adds originally deleted footage but removes scenes from the original, making it roughly of equal running time.  Scott has stated on numerous occasions that the theatrical version IS a "Director's Cut," and that the 2004 version should rightly be labeled as an "alternate cut."  The "centerpiece" of the 2004 version is the once-legendary "Dallas cocooned" scene, which is appropriately icky and provided the inspiration for the hive in Aliens, but is pretty superfluous to the overall narrative and slows down the pacing in the final act.  I like both versions; neither is really preferable.