Apocalypse Now Redux (1979/2001)

THE HORROR... THE HORROR...

Apocalypse Now is, and probably always will be, one of the most notorious, infamous and legendary films of all time. Originally intended as a faux documentary to be filmed during the Vietnam War under the direction of George Lucas, it was constantly pushed back and rewritten and revisualised until it became a surreal and engulfing story directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The production was a nightmare, with the cast being changed or struck with illness; the sets being destroyed by storms; the budget more than doubling; and the intended four-month shoot extending to almost a year and a half. Coppola became almost maniacal in his push to complete the film, which took a further two years to edit, getting its release in 1979, three years after it had begun filming. In 2001, Coppola went back to the film and released a new edit of the film, reinstating scenes dropped from the original cut, adding a further 49 minutes to the already huge 153-minute running time. This was released as Apocalypse Now Redux.

Vietnam, 1969. Captain Willard (Martin Sheen), an experienced Special Forces officer, is sent back into the jungle on a top-secret mission to find and kill renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has set up his own army within the jungle. As Willard forges ahead into the jungle, he slowly descends into a state of border-line insanity brought on by his mission and the jungle itself, becoming more like the man he was sent to kill.

At the time of writing, it was perhaps only a couple of months ago that I had the good fortune to be able to see an all-new digital re-release of the original cut of Apocalypse Now on a big cinema screen. It had been years since I had seen it, and I would have kicked myself if I had missed it, particularly with the legendary sound design being played through big theatre sound. Some things genuinely do just need to be seen at least once on the big screen. The showing I went to was an early-afternoon Wednesday screening, the last in its run. When I came to two-and-a-half hours later, I was rather spaced out, walking through the streets back to my car in a mild daze, reeling from the spectacle I had just seen. I genuinely didn’t speak to anyone for around an hour and a half after the film finished. I can’t think of many ways to better describe it than that, other than perhaps this: as I sat in the theatre, which was only moderately busy, there were people around who, for one reason or another, couldn’t sit through the full running time like myself and some others could. Someone had to leave to go to the toilet, someone went to get another drink, the reasons varied. As I sat there, transfixed by the film onscreen, I did, on occasion, have my concentration broken now and then by one of those people moving from their seat. As they moved, I would glance at them, not contemptuously so, but simply because there was movement where there had been none before. My glance away from the film was momentary, less than a second, and I missed no line of dialogue nor visual metaphor. And yet, though I missed nothing of the film, for that split second of not looking at the screen… I missed looking at the screen. I was so absorbed by the action, by the visuals, by the enveloping soundtrack, that if I took myself out of it, even for a moment, I missed not being inside the atmosphere of the film. It was a comfortable bed that I was loathed to tear myself away from. Such is the strength that still remains in Apocalypse Now.

One of the truly great things about Apocalypse Now, and the 2001 re-edit Redux, is that I still can’t entirely decide if it’s one of the worst directed films ever or one of the best directed films ever. It’s ambitious, pretentious, flawed, vital, indulgent, incendiary filmmaking at its most extreme. Coppola himself says that, as the film progresses, the story itself becomes less important. He always said that it’s more of an experience than a film. There is the distinct impression that the film, at some point, ceases to be under the direction of Coppola and instead begins to direct itself, like a living entity trying explore itself in the same the way the characters in the film do. Off the top of my head, I can think of only one other film that has managed to achieve this sense that the film has come alive on its own and begun to dictate its own trajectory, beyond the control (and sometimes the understanding) of its original controller. That film is one I’ll eventually get to in this journey through my collection, but for now, I’ll keep my focus on Apocalypse Now Redux.

Most of what I already think about the original film remains intact in the light of the new material on show in Redux, despite some pretty sizable shifts in structure and flow. I’ll begin by talking about the original film, and then move onto other considerations developed by the new edit.

The original intentions of Apocalypse Now can generally be summed up with the same words that so many others, particularly film students, have used to describe their own projects – “I want to take a proper, realistic look at this, without the bullshit.  I don’t want the audience to watch it, I want them to feel it.” The Vietnam War is often described by those that were there as a truly grim and hazy experience, like a bad trip in a hostile place that never seemed to end. If this is the case, then Apocalypse Now truly is the closest thing to being there. Loosely basing itself on Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness, the film surges forward into a journey through corruption, amoral reasoning, madness and the dark soul that rests at the heart of every human being. Willard is sent to “terminate with extreme prejudice” Col. Kurtz, a brilliant soldier on his way to becoming one of the top brass in the country, because he has gone off the rails, has closed himself off from the outside world and begun to amass his own army of natives deep within Cambodia. To these less civilised people, he has become a deity, a god, an idol to whom they have given themselves over to completely. With this unwavering support, Kurtz begins fighting the war on his own terms, picking his own targets and ordering his new troops to kill them. That he seems to be getting some sort of results in his area is not the concern to the US military. To them, he has gone completely insane. Therefore, they formally charge him with murder (a notion both Kurtz and Willard find, in the context of where they are, insane) and assign Willard to kill him. On the journey, Willard reads over the numerous documents of Kurtz’s accomplishments, his multiple decorations, his many achievements, and comes to question the authority that would create such a brilliant and highly decorated soldier only to deem him mad for carrying out the duties of his command, but without their input and a ruthless efficiency that they find collectively disturbing. By the time Willard meets his intended target, his journey and his own dwindling mental state mean that he is more like Kurtz than himself.

That Kurtz is regularly alluded to as some sort of deity, and Willard’s journey towards him makes the Apocalypse Now something akin to a religious pilgrimage. People go on these types of journeys to feel closer to God, at least metaphorically. Willard’s journey is made more intense and intriguing because, not only does he know that he will have met God by the end of the trek, but it’s his job to kill him. Along the way, the more he reads of Kurtz’s exploits, both within the military and without, as well as letters from Kurtz to his family, the more Willard becomes indoctrinated into Kurtz’s way of thinking. He starts to buy into the cult of Kurtz. He begins to believe in him. The sense of the religious is scattered throughout the film at numerous instances, utilising religious iconography and imagery, both Western and Eastern, at various points to support this ideal. The whole voyage itself, often described as a descent into madness and Hell, is somewhat structured after a journey (albeit a meandering one) through the various levels of Hell suggested in Dante’s Inferno, with Willard acting as out Virgil. Willard begins in his Saigon hotel room, endlessly waiting on his next assignment – The First Circle of Limbo. As his boat sails down the river, he makes stops at regular intervals. There’s the famous helicopter blitz attack on a small village (Seventh Circle - Violence); there’s the USO show featuring three Playboy Bunnies (Second Circle - Lust); there’s stopping for mangoes, with Chef discussing food, before being chased away by a tiger (Third Circle – Gluttony, with the tiger acting as Cerberus). There’s even a possible allusion to the eternal torment of Greek character Sisyphus, who was condemned to spend eternity pushing a boulder to the top of a hill only to watch it roll back down and have to repeat the task forever. This point can be found in the scene where Willard’s boat happens upon a US Army outpost at a bridge with no commanding officer, which is under constant attack from Vietnamese troops. The US keeps trying to build the bridge; the enemy keeps destroying it. Kurtz’s appearance of a fat bald man (though much to the intense displeasure of director Coppola) actually extends this Eastern deity idea, making him look like some darkly perverted image of Buddha. And the final 15 minutes are a work of brutal ritual, figurative and literal.

The main sequences remain as big and powerful as always. The opening scene with Willard is still a supremely evocative sequence, stirring up the beginnings of the dark hysteria and tragedy that the rest of the film will build on. From the moment Lt. Col. Kilgore, played with a vigorous bravado by Robert Duvall, shows up, the whole film seems to run on a more intense heat, almost like the character makes the film itself stand more at attention. The helicopter attack on the village and school are masterworks of editing, of music, of frankly epic sound design. The Sisyphean bridge scene is something of a deliberate eeriness and shell-shocked horror, scattered with examples of aimless aggression and paranoia. Particularly disquieting is the unblinking soldier who blows up the remains of a Vietnamese squad hiding in the jungle, judging the aim and distance by ear, with an almost supernatural calm.

Kurtz’s compound of death is also still deeply unnerving, decorated with heads, skulls, corpses and words scrawled onto a wall – “OUR MOTTO: APOCALYPSE NOW”. Dennis Hopper’s jittery and intense photojournalist is a rather unsettling presence, but mainly because he’s such enthusiastic believer in Kurtz and his doctrine. He’s a fanatic. He really believes the man is a genius, a god, because when he says things, he has the strength and will to carry them out. As he tells Willard:

Photojournalist: I wish I had words, man. I wish I had words... I can tell ya

something like the other day he wanted to kill me. Somethin’ like that...

Willard: Why’d he wanna kill you?

Photojournalist: Because I took his picture. He said “If you take my picture

again, I'm gonna kill you.” And he meant it.

That he delivers that last line with more than a little awe, as if he’s honoured he should be so regarded by Kurtz, is unsettling.

Many people find the scenes with Brando to be the point where the film wanders too far, goes off the rails too much. Honestly, I disagree. I think it left the rails long before. Now the journey has come to an end and therefore Willard must finally come to make his choice… kill the man, or join him. Brando, for all of his weird dialogue (most of which he made up) and his grotesque appearance, is still a forceful and imposing presence in the film. There’s no doubting that this rambling maniac is capable of doing these terrible things, but there’s equally no doubting that he could inspire the following to do it. Brando has always been possessed of great charisma, indeed that’s why he became the idol to so many in real life. And that’s just exactly what cult leaders need – presence, charisma, the ability to command an audience’s attention. And the way he delivers the monologue about the enemy soldiers that inspired Kurtz to become what he is is still remarkably chilling, made more so because it’s somewhat understandable. That’s what makes Kurtz really horrifying, that he arrived at his mania with a logical clarity that’s difficult to deny.

The new changes made to the film in the Redux cut are mostly small ones, but feature two pretty large additions to the story. One is a return of the Playboy Bunnies from the USO show who had to leave quickly in their helicopter after the audience got too rowdy and started to storm the stage. Willard’s boat comes across a mostly abandoned medevac site that the Bunnies’ helicopter landed. Here, Willard trades two barrels of fuel so the other men on the boat can have one hour with two of them. The girls are now as druggy as most of the soldiers in the film (one absently talking about birds; the other how she feels more like a plaything than a person), so they seem completely unaware that they are being undressed and positioned. It’s a rather unsettling addition, furthering the impression that anyone lost in this morass will become instantly corrupted, be they soldier or civilian.

The other main addition is the French plantation scene, where Willard and his fellow travellers happen upon a plantation run by a French family and protected by French soldiers. This is a far more surreal sequence. Welcomed by the owners, the American soldiers are brought in and cleaned up, fed a proper meal in a very expensive and well-kept house. The family discuss politics and history, with things becoming more heated amongst themselves when Willard asks when they plan on returning to France, given the war that rages around them. They say that they shall never leave, because this is their home, this is their land. For the whole scene, we remain as well informed on the discussion as Willard, which is to say, not very. We get no subtitles to tell us what they say amongst each other, with only some of the conversation being in English and directed at Willard. When people begin seriously disagreeing, leaving the table, sometimes in tears, it’s rather awkward, for us and for Willard. Willard is eventually left at the table with a young woman, who never said a word during dinner. The two eventually go off, smoke some opium, and she tells him, “There are two of you, can’t you see? One that kills, and one that loves,” thus echoing this continued sense of moral duality in the piece. As it is, this particular sequence is one I’m inclined to say isn’t real, that it exists in a peculiar fantasy world, one into which Willard retreats for a sense of perspective. It’s not even just because the scene is bookended by a thick white mist, but because this whole sequence has such a different feel about it. It feels antiquated, outside of the rest of the film. Even the music suggests a period some forty years prior.

Overall, Apocalypse Now is still a film of immense power, liable to leave most people a bit punch-drunk after seeing it, though in the best possible way. The Redux version is one of the few films that has been served better from its reconstitution of old scenes. It’s still the dark, chaotic, living film as before, but now with extra moments of surreal vision, of bleak pontificating, of genuine emotional power. The original cut is still not an inferior one by comparison; it just serves to have its points made a bit better in the newer cut.

...And Justice for All. (1979)

THIS MAN NEEDS THE BEST LAWYER IN TOWN. BUT THE PROBLEM IS... HE IS THE BEST LAWYER IN TOWN.

Today we continue our filmic look into the world of the law, and it continues to be a sad and sordid world for those in the legal profession. For all the idealism of justice being served, the guilty being locked up and the innocent protected from the criminal element, the reality seems to be a far cry from this. The legal system is a maelstrom of legal jargon, bureaucratic jumbling, back-room deals and raging egos. The system is there to dispense justice, but to serve the people who can play the game the best. Here, the guilty get off on technicalities and the innocent get unjustly locked up because their court-appointed attorney couldn’t care less about them. Ethics? Morals? These are bad things for a lawyer to hold onto.

Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino), an idealistic defence attorney in Baltimore, cares about his clients more than any other lawyer, which frequently puts him at odds with others in the legal system. His rough caseload is weighted further when Judge Fleming (John Forsythe), a by-the-book tyrant Arthur hates, demands that Arthur defend him when he is accused of sexually assaulting on a young woman.

Writers Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson paint a vivid picture with the script to …And Justice for All. The world they’ve created is populated with a varied swirl of characters, perfectly designed to tell their story. Almost all of the lawyers are amoral sharpshooters, who only want to win the case to keep their game alive; the judges are lunatics and tyrants, given to revel in the amount of power they hold over people; the police are incompetent bullies, taken to making fun of the obviously weaker elements that cross their path. How exactly can justice be won in this kind of environment? It’s almost like a reworking of Kafka’s The Trial, only this time Josef K is represented in Arthur Kirkland, the one honest guy in town. The depth of the legal woes befalling system are directed towards Arthur, who spends virtually all of his time trying to help an innocent man who’s been stuck in jail for over a year, trying to defend a transvestite who’s too afraid of the system to survive in it, trying to defend himself in front of an ethics committee. He’s forced to yell, beg and cajole people into getting help when he needs it. That so much is packed into the film is a testament to the writing on show.

Honestly, Norman Jewison’s direction isn’t really his best work. The opening credit sequence, a short montage of courtrooms and buildings with the American pledge of allegiance as recited by some, no doubt, very cute little kids, sets things up badly. Its cuteness just makes the film seem like a crossover between Law & Order and Sesame Street. The music for the film is also something of a tonal misfire. It’s too jaunty, too whimsical, too much like a lighter episode of Cagney & Lacey. This level of inconsistency is rather obvious throughout. At times, it seems like the hard-bitten legal drama that’s expected, but other times it feels more like a romance of sorts, and other times make it seem like a flat-out comedy. The scene in which Judge Rayford takes Arthur for a helicopter flight is really funny, but is nevertheless a bit out of place in the overall effort. Also, look back up at that tagline at the top, which utterly mis-sells the nature of the film's story. It doesn’t leave you feeling as battered as some other films with the same problem do, but it still compromises the full intention of the piece. And the film itself ends badly, with a rather bizarre bit of humour that completely defuses the big moment of catharsis from only a moment before.

That we are able to really the feel the journey of these characters is not because of Jewison’s direction, but the talent of the superb cast assembled. John Forsythe’s Judge Fleming is a smug, nasty piece of work. He has the look of someone who enjoys the position of power, the ability to dominate those weaker than him. Forsythe is damn good. Jeffrey Tambor, here in his feature film debut, is hilarious and tragic in equal measure. The scene where he arrives drunk at Pacino’s door at two in the morning is played beautifully by Tambor. Jack Warden is great as Judge Rayford, a guy straight out of the Wild West, but utterly suicidal as well. Lee Strasberg and Sam Levene make for superb watching, both of them wonderfully affecting and heartfelt. However, it’s Pacino’s show all the way. In fact, it’s the power of Pacino’s performance that really directs this film, not Jewison. In the hands of someone less capable, the film would feel much more episodic, like a series of legally-themed vignettes. As it is, Pacino is able to play each scene so very well, but is also able to maintain a consistency throughout. It’s superb work from the man.

If there is one thing to hobble the film somewhat, beyond the problems with the direction, it’s the feeling that some people may get that it’s just a bunch of liberal wailing. To be fair, they would have a point. So much of the time is spent saying that there’s something wrong with the system, the system is broken, “You’re out of order! You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order!” However, there’s little in the way of addressing anything like a solution. Now, of course it’s the point of the film to highlight a serious societal problem in the hope of making a change for the better. That’s what most art tries to do. However, many people watching will find this unwelcome, and more than a little biased. For a film about justice, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of balance. Cops here are only incompetent; judges are only insane; committees are only useless; only the innocent are imprisoned; only the guilty are freed. Yes, okay, something is clearly wrong here… but only in this world that you’ve created for the film. In reality, not all cops are incompetent, not all judges are insane. You may feel like cheering when Arthur makes his big speech at the end, decrying the system and how it gets used, but some people will just feel like they’re on the receiving end of an unwelcome sermon. If you’re looking to push for change in society, you’re not going to get much done if you instantly alienate half of the audience. The spirit is commendable, but the tactics may backfire.

…And Justice for All. is a rather uneven picture, with Jewison occasionally losing focus on just what kind of picture he’s making. Also, the script, though otherwise a fine work, will turn some off with the rather confused “liberal” bent. However, it’s the acting that really drives the picture, and Al Pacino is on stellar form here. The performances and the genuinely good moments of drama in the picture are enough to warrant the watch, so long as you overlook the tonal shifts.

The Amityville Horror (1979)

"FOR GOD'S SAKE, GET OUT!"

In the 1970s, there was something of an appetite for horror films with a supernatural charge, with demonic possession or acknowledgement of the occult as the major basis for the attempted scares. If it was based on a true story, and that productions were themselves haunted, even better. In 1973, The Exorcist was released, which really kicked everything off. The next big one was three years later, with 1976’s The Omen. Three years later, there came another. Based on a book recounting the “true” experiences of the Lutz family, who claimed to be terrorised by a demonic presence in their new home, which was itself the site of a multiple homicide, The Amityville Horror was released.

George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder), a newly married couple with three children, move into their beautiful new house in Amityville, knowing full well that it was the site of a mass murder only a year before. After moving in, they begin to be tormented by an evil force within the house, trying to drive them away.

As a movie villain, haunted houses are rather tricky. Since there’s no actual monster or direct physical threat to centre the terror on, it relies on the careful construction of a malevolent atmosphere within the structure itself, a faceless sense of foreboding that should make the audience uneasy without really knowing why, a gradual building of unbearable tension. It takes a steady hand to work this angle. The Amityville Horror has none of these things.

First off, the script by Sandor Stern is devoid of any legitimate structure. The whole narrative unfolds as if it were a 9-year-old trying to tell a scary story. ‘These people moved into this house and the house was haunted… and one day, there was a lot of flies in a room, but they weren’t there anymore… and then, when everyone was sleeping, there was a noise downstairs, but there wasn’t anyone there… and then the man lost some money and he couldn’t find it anywhere… and then there was a cross on the wall that went upside down… and then the door burst open, but no one did it… and then…’ This is unbelievably juvenile storytelling. Characters are treated with roughly the same amount of respect, given next to no actual motivation or depth, existing only for bad stuff to happen to them. Once the bad thing has happened, they are simply forgotten. The kids may as well be named Boy #1, Boy#2 and Girl for all the character they possess. Father Delaney is given a line about being a psychotherapist, but it’s treated with such tokenism that it’s just insulting. And Sergeant Gionfriddo does nothing. It is a truly woeful piece of writing.

Stuart Rosenberg’s direction is abysmal. It’s all over the place. It’s so clumsy and uneven that it’s amazing to consider that this is the same man who gave us Cool Hand Luke. The horror genre is just clearly not his forte, being that he seems utterly incapable of capitalising on any kind of opportunity for tension. He’s simply stuck on using stock tricks that are just cheap and inept (a jump scare with a cat), stealing ideas from better movies (spot the constant Psycho rip-offs) and constantly looking at things that are a bit weird (like an ugly porcelain dragon by the fireplace or the infamous “evil eyes” of the house). Everything about it shows Rosenberg’s complete lack of control in such a genre. There’s a story that, in order to get a frightened reaction from Margot Kidder when she sees two lights/eyes/whatever outside the house, Rosenberg held up an orange velour pig with glass eyes… what? Never mind why he thought that would scare someone, where did he get something like that? Rosenberg’s use of religious iconography is also incredibly weak. The editing is atrocious as well. An early scene where the couple are being shown around the house by the realtor is punctuated with shots from the previous scene of the murders being committed. It has literally been only a couple of minutes since we saw them, and we haven’t left the house, but they feel the need to remind us of what happened in these rooms. The fact that the murder scene could have been worked in to better effect later on and the realtor scene cut out altogether is yet another problem with the film. And the sound design… in this world, tension is signified by the sound of a live cable left unplugged, so a less than subtle hummmmm rests under, or rather over, moments when you’re meant to be scared. This just feels like rank amateurism.

I have no idea what the cast are doing. Every one of them seems to be working on a different film, or at least at different stages of this one. James Brolin becomes the angry guy so quickly, he’s barely registered on screen before he develops bags under his eyes and his carefully constructed hair loses its body. Margot Kidder must have the shortest memory ever, since her character will completely dismiss something she thought strange only seconds before. ‘What’s that smell? There’s some kind of… ah well, must be nothing.’ Rod Steiger (here looking weirdly like Piper Laurie) is so over-dramatic that he stands out purely because he’s yelling all the time. Honestly, I think that a lot of the problems with the performances stem more from Rosenberg’s awkward direction than the actors themselves, but they still turn in poor work.

Perhaps the reason for the sheer underwhelming nature of the film stems from the possibility that no one working on the film actually believed that the story was true. After the film was released, both Brolin and Kidder were fairly open about the fact that they did not believe any of it. Kidder would later admit that she hated the film. In fact, when you consider some of the scenes of supposed terror, you can actually see how the filmmakers don’t believe it and are perhaps offering very subtle alternate theories as to what really happened. When the money goes missing, the babysitter was there, so maybe she did it. When the babysitter gets stuck in the closet, maybe the little girl really did do it and not some ghost. The house itself could quite easily be riddled with carpentry problems or electrical issues, which could account for some things.

Of course, all of this is moot anyway. The whole story was debunked years ago, thanks to a multitude of investigators and a lawsuit surrounding the authenticity of the events recounted in the original book. Besides, if the purpose of the film was to offer a critique of the legitimacy of the hauntings, then it should have been made clearer. However, it’s not. It was an actual attempt to make a horror film based on true events in an effort to scare people, and it failed miserably at its task.

The Amityville Horror is an incredibly poor film, lacking any kind of atmosphere or tension. The performances are over-the-top and inconsistent, the script unfolds in a manner akin to a child telling a ghost story, and, judging by the constantly ham-fisted attempts to frighten, it’s clear that Rosenberg has no idea as to what is actually scary. The fact that it has a cult appeal based on how laughable it is really should be enough of an indicator.

Alien (1979)

IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM

What happens when you give a B-movie concept the A-movie treatment? When you take the seed of a simple genre piece and spin it out into a towering behemoth of conceptual art, technical mastery and utter terror? Well, in 1979, the world got a decisive answer to that… you get one of the most revered, respected and influential horror films ever. Finding its roots in relatively low-grade sf shockers, drawing it up in the wake of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and setting its sights on being an intense horror experience, we have here something special… Alien.

Whilst travelling through space back to Earth, the commercial towing vehicle Nostromo receives an SOS signal from a nearby planet. The crew, are under obligation to investigate, land on the planet, causing some damage. While looking around, an alien creature attacks one crewmember, and eventually the whole crew are in danger.

Writer Dan O’Bannon wrote the original screenplay for Alien out of a kind of frustration with an earlier attempt at an sf film, his 1974 Dark Star, directed by John Carpenter. It’s a classic of sorts (and I’ll get to it at some point), but budget constraints hampered the film greatly, most notably in the alien sequence. There’s no getting away from the fact that it is a beach ball. This always annoyed O’Bannon, who decided to have another crack at the genre. Sitting down with fellow writer, Ronald Shusett, the pair fleshed out a story about a dangerous alien being set loose on board a commercial spaceship, terrorising the crew. Building on the basic concept of Dark Star - a group of truckers in space - O’Bannon creates a great bunch of characters. These people aren’t really astronauts or space adventurers… they’re blue collar workers. They look kind of scruffy, they bitch about pay, can’t wait to get home for some real food. We know these kinds of people. They’re so recognisable to us that it’s very easy to identify with them and, therefore, fear for them. More importantly, they are, to some degree, a family. Living and working together this closely, they kind of should be. This is echoed by the name of the ship’s computer, Mother. There are also great details to the creature. For example, it bleeds acid. It’s such a simple touch, but serves to make the story more tense and the creature even more terrifying.

Ridley Scott held the directorial reigns on Alien and, though it was only his second feature film, it is confirmation of his talent and a staggering achievement. Scott is widely known as one of the most skilled visual directors alive and this serves as evidence why. It is one of the most completely realised films I’ve ever seen. Every detail has had attention. It begins so very slowly, camera movements are so calm and deliberate, and the ship is so quiet that even a harmless chirp from the computer is able to draw a jump in the first couple of minutes. The film has an unstoppable pace. As the film goes on and the terror level rises throughout, the pace quickens and quickens to an almost hysterical level. The film is a masterpiece of editing.

The design elements and cinematography are so rich with detail, too. Despite being in the future, the ship looks lived-in. It should do. It’s effectively a giant space truck, and serves as the full time work and living quarters of its small crew. There’s a grime to this ship, a grit that covers everything, setting it in sharp contrast to the clean and carefully polished veneer of other contemporary spaceships. It’s rather chunky looks also help to set it in further contrast to the other craft they look to investigate. There, it’s all smooth surfaces and lines, a much more organic feel.

It also has some of the best sound design ever. So much of the film’s atmosphere is so capably built by sound, you could have just a black screen and it would still be as effective. Such wonderful details come through from this. For example, when the crew are around the table, eating, talking, interacting as a group, the ship emits a rhythmic pulse, a heartbeat. It so beautifully and elegantly sums up this group in this place that dialogue is almost superfluous. Every scene is equipped with a superb soundscape, adding wonderfully to the whole. The nerve-shredding scrape of the ventilation shaft hatches, the unsettling rattle of chains in one of the ship’s cargo bays, the eerie high-pitched hum of the alien egg chamber, the screech of the creature itself. The film is a stream of aural assaults, and it’s superb from beginning to end.

The actors on show do a great job. This was Sigourney Weaver’s first real role in a feature and she is excellent as Ripley. It’s the role that people think of when they think of her. She’s got great presence on the screen, which works to give Ripley that sense of strength and fortitude she needs. Ripley is, frankly, one of the bravest film characters ever. Note I did not say fearless. Ripley often shows signs of fear and hesitance, but she’s never put off by it. She willingly puts herself in harm’s way because she must, and you buy it completely from Weaver. It’s a little difficult to conceive of Veronica Cartwright playing the role, like she was originally supposed to. Part of it is because Weaver just seems much more capable of projecting the strength, but that is also informed by how well Cartwright portrays Lambert, who is much less controlled, more emotionally raw than Ripley. Ian Holm is a picture of disquieting calm; Tom Skerritt exudes the air of the tough decision-making captain; John Hurt does well despite not a whole lot of screen time; and Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton do great as the money-grubbing labourers, particular credit going to Kotto for his work as Parker.

However, the dark heart of the picture is where the horror lies. It’s not simply about a dangerous creature out to kill people in a place from which they can’t escape… it’s about sex. Specifically, it’s about rape, the fear of, the act of, and the repercussions of rape. It was in the mind of O’Bannon to have the alien burst forth from one of the crewmembers, as inspired by some insects and bugs. Apparently, when O’Bannon was asked how the creature was to get inside the crewmember, he said, “It screws ‘em.” From this came the notion of rape and impregnation. By an interesting turn, the subject is not the females of the crew, but the men. The whole film plays on the male fear of rape, and their misunderstanding of pregnancy and birth. With this notion in mind, it genuinely does add a more disturbing feel to the film. For example, when Kane has the Facehugger attached to him, and everyone stands around, trying to figure out what it is, the alien is in the act of raping and impregnating Kane. The crew don’t know it, but that’s what’s happening. That they don’t know this and are unsure how to help makes it all the more terrifying. Sex in this film seems to be an act of violence, and moments of sexual thoughts are swiftly countered with terror. At its most basic (and somewhat crude) indication of the film’s central conceit, the focus rests on the ship’s cat, Jones, which Ripley rescues: Protect your pussy and you’ll be fine… yes, I know, I did say it was a bit crude.

The idea of sex being something to fear is encapsulated by the H.R. Giger’s designs for the Xenomorph. (Did you really think I wasn’t going to mention Giger?) Giger’s designs are so obviously sexual, but in a very dark and disturbing way. His artwork in general is characterised by this rather nightmarish sense of sex and sexuality. The Xenomorph’s body is inherently phallic, from its newborn self, which kind of looks like a penis with teeth (scary, right?), to the head of its fully-grown self. It’s also got the mouth-within-the-mouth that serves as form of surrogate penis, something with which to penetrate and do untold damage. That the Xenomorph doesn’t even have eyes makes it even more unsettling.

There’s also a matricidal theme running through the picture, too. The Xenomorph creature that stalks the crew is a violent product of an interspecies sexual assault and, in being born, ends up killing its mother, who in this case is John Hurt. The Xenomorph from then on acts as a living embodiment of rape and matricide. Ripley effectively engages in a version of matricide, too, when she has to set the self-destruct sequence on the ship, killing Mother, the ship’s computer.

After a little over thirty years, Alien still holds all of its original power. It remains one of the most atmospheric, tense and scary horror films ever, thanks to high quality work at every level of production. It’s also one of the most cerebral horror films around, with ample opportunity for dissection and discussion. Imitations and rip-offs are rife, but this is in a league above all others.