Everybody knows the story – a
spaceship on the way home to Earth hears a distress call. The crew is awakened to go investigate said
distress call. The crew finds a bunch of
eggs during their investigation. One of
the crew is attacked by one of the eggs, from which spider-like creature attaches
to the crewman’s head but doesn’t kill him.
The same crewmember dies when he “gives birth” to a creature during a
spaghetti dinner. The creature gets
loose, gets incredibly huge and very nasty, and kills most of the crew. One of
the crew turns out to be an android. He has instructions from his corporate
masters to bring creature back at all costs [including if the entire crew
dies]. Eventually everybody dies except
for the movie’s heroine. She makes a
getaway in an escape pod, so does the creature.
After she suits up and decompresses the escape pod, she blasts the
creature into outer space. Then she goes
to sleep for a very long time. But this
wasn’t the end – there were three sequels, after all.
Why is Alien a horror movie instead of just a sci-fi flick?
Tony’s Horror Movie Rule #1 – If it makes you scream or jump out of
your seat, it’s a horror movie.
Tony’s Horror Movie Rule #2 – If it has a monster that makes you feel
“creeped out,” it’s a horror movie.
Godzilla is a monster, but it doesn’t scare anybody except Tokyo. I actually root for Godzilla to destroy Tokyo
every time, but I digress. The creature
in Alien is pretty damn scary.
Every good horror movie has at
least one “Whoa!” moment [or “Holy Shit!” moment if you prefer]. Alien
has three of them:
1.
Kane is attacked – Ok, I was expecting something to happen when John Hurt’s
character [Kane] gets his face right up next to the egg. But, that didn’t lessen the impact of when
the creature jumped out of the egg and wrapped itself around Hurt’s face.
2.
Kane gives birth – Nobody saw this one coming,
not even the cast. The only one who was
clued in about this scene was John Hurt.
When the rest of the cast looks shocked, it’s because they really were. As John Hurt is eating spaghetti, suddenly he
doubles over in pain. The crew doesn’t
know what to do. Suddenly a baseball bat
with little eyes, teeth and a tail bursts out of his chest. I didn’t want to eat spaghetti for weeks
after I saw that.
3.
Bilbo Baggins is an android – Ian Holm played
Ash. Ash was the science officer on the Nostromo. He’s a quiet, logical, by-the-book guy –
mostly. After Kane is attacked, Ash
violates Ripley’s orders [and quarantine protocol] by bringing Kane aboard. After the creature has killed most of the
crew, Ash tries to kill Ripley by stuffing a magazine down her throat. Two of the crewmembers, Lambert [Veronica
Cartwright] and Parker [Yaphet Kotto] bash Ash over the head with a
container. The first time they do it Ash
malfunctions. The second time, Ash is
decapitated. When he is, he spews
android hydraulic fluid [which looks like skim milk] all over the place. Then they have to electrocute him with a
cattle prod. He was almost as hard to
kill as Grigory Raputin. To add to this,
the remaining crew reactivates Ash’s disembodied head, only for it to tell them
he had orders to bring the creature back to Earth alive, and that the crew was
expendable. Soon Ripley turns the head
into Ash Flambé.
The alien looks like an album cover.
As I watched the alien evolve, I couldn’t help that I felt like I’d seen the creature
before. Then I learned the alien was designed by H.R.
Giger. He’s the guy who did the cover
for Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s album Brain
Salad Surgery.
Alien made a ton of money, so it was a given that there would be a
sequel. Then the sequel made a ton of
money, and Ripley became more of a badass.
Then Ripley died in the third movie.
Not satisfied with Ripley’s death, Ripley somehow got cloned like Bill
the Cat’s tongue in Bloom County for
the fourth movie. But wait! That’s not the end – there had to be a
“prequel!” Enter Prometheus. Luckily, I liked
all the movies. But the bald look in the
third movie just isn’t for Sigourney Weaver.
Just sayin’…
If it is true that nobody can
hear you scream in space, then why do we always hear explosions in space in
every sci-fi movie ever made? Or
rockets?
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