Alien: Resurrection (1997)

IT'S BEEN MORE THAN 200 YEARS... THE BEGINNING HAS JUST STARTED

Well, finally, after 18 years and some serious highs and lows, the Alien series reaches its end… well, before the whole Alien Vs. Predator thing. Each of the films had their own personality of sorts and gave some new(ish) directors a shot at the big time. The first was Ridley Scott’s work of tense genius - Alien. The second was James Cameron’s adrenaline-fuelled action panic fest - Aliens. The third was the badly misconceived mess - Alien³. Finally, there’s the fourth instalment, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection.

After 200 years, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is brought back to life through the process of cloning, during which the scientists successfully take the Queen Alien out of her. However, Ripley’s DNA has been mixed up with the Queen’s, making her part Xenomorph. The scientists begin breeding the aliens, but they soon escape and wreak havoc on the ship. Now, Ripley and a band of pirates have to escape and stop the alien menace from reaching Earth.

Joss Whedon’s script is interesting, largely because it’s barely an Alien movie, if at all. It’s a disaster movie, mashing up Jurassic Park and The Poseidon Adventure and setting it in space. The pack of Raptors that tore up that dinosaur theme park have been replaced with the Xenomorph creatures and they’ve all been set after a group of survivors trying to make it off the ship before it crashes. As it turns out, in light of Whedon’s projects since then, it would also act as a sort of dry run for what would become his sf/western TV series Firefly… God, that was a good show. Anyway, there is a very recognisable Whedon-ness throughout the script. You can see the nicely drawn characters, the sarcastically dark humour. It’s not all smooth sailing, though… I still don’t entirely buy Christie’s way out.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet actually does a pretty good job of engaging visually with the film. His is an Expressionistic style, almost comic booky. He conceives of shots well, in a manner that almost recalls the first film, albeit in a more exaggerated way, a more… well, French way. He also has some very effective set pieces. The underwater sequence, though nothing you haven’t seen before, works terrifically well and the sequence with Ripley and the Newborn Xenomorph/Human hybrid is very disconcerting. However, you will note that I say “visually” and not “tonally”. Jeunet, for whatever reason, just simply does not seem to get Whedon’s humour or manner of storytelling. As such, scenes that should probably have more significance are given little to no real attention. The character of Sabra is down to almost nothing, which affects both our connection to her and Frank. There are other moments that you know Whedon, had he been calling the shots, would have done differently. Like Perez’s discussions with Wren and Gediman near the start of the film. They actually are funny, but not as much as they perhaps should be. It’s not like the writing has been changed to reflect a more direct approach either; it’s just been short-circuited a little. Perhaps the reason for this was that Jeunet, at the time of filming, didn’t speak English and had to have interpreters on set at all times. He certainly wouldn’t be the first director to make a film with a language barrier between him or herself and the actors, but Whedon’s writing has a subtlety that would be very easily missed under such circumstances. Saying that, it’s also possible that Jeunet simply chose to ignore all of that and do it his way. He is the director, after all.

Sigourney Weaver is actually more alive here than she was previously. The character had gotten a little stale, regressed, and though she tried to keep her strong, Weaver was still not working with much. The idea of Ripley now being part Xenomorph has given the actress a new dimension to explore. Not only is she still the smart and brave character we know, but she’s also become a genuine threat to others. There’s a new, more menacing aspect to Ripley and Weaver realises it fully, becoming like an animalistic bully, leering into people’s faces and sniffing them. It’s also got a very weird seductive undercurrent to it. Weaver was clearly very happy to get something new out of this.

Others also do quite well for themselves. Brad Dourif seems to be incapable of not being creepy onscreen; Ron Perlman commits as much as he always does, so much so that it seems like it’s overacting, but that’s really just the vulgar nature of Johner; Leland Orser does the panicky bit well; and Michael Wincott does the badass captain well enough for his few scenes. I remain somewhat undecided on how successful Winona Ryder is. She’s convincing enough being all doe-eyed and moralistic, but I get the feeling I should be getting more from her in a ‘what’s the true nature of humanity’ kind of way that I just don’t feel.

There are others in the cast that don’t really fare as well, largely as a factor of the tonal disconnect between the writer and director. Gary Dourdan seems to be unsure of how badass his character is, so there are times where you see him hold back or act mean only to close it back up again right away. Dan Hedaya’s Perez is a little scattered, too. It almost seems like the scenes he’s in were directed by Terry Gilliam rather than Jeunet. Raymond Cruz also engages in some rather unhealthy overacting, though it wouldn't be the first time.

Honestly, I’m not even going to attempt any kind of subextual considerations since I kind of feel like the film covers the same kind of ground as the first two, though perhaps with the tables being turned and now it’s the mother’s turn to kill the offspring… and even that was sort of hinted at, albeit clumsily, in the third one.

Alien: Resurrection isn’t the confused jumble that mars its immediate predecessor, but neither does it have the spiky genius of the first two. It’s visually very engaging, it’s got some fine set pieces, has much more of an idea about the central thrust behind it all, and Sigourney Weaver is given a great new depth to play with. However, it does feel like two visions clashing (Jeunet’s and Whedon’s) to the detriment of the overall project. As such, it can’t really be elevated much beyond okay.

Alien³ (1992)

IN 1979, WE DISCOVERED IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM. IN 1992, WE WILL DISCOVER, ON EARTH, EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM.

There is, in music, the notion of the difficult third album, which largely hinges on the response to the previous two. The first album shows people what you can do. If that’s a success, the second one shows whether or not it was a fluke. If that’s a success, the third should solidify the classic status of the band. Here, the band isn’t a band; it’s a Xenomorph. Following two very different, but very successful Alien movies, as is the way, the third film in the series had so much more riding on it… but where do you go with it? The Alien franchise seemed to be the one where people could take risks, could make something bold and new, could explore avenues unavailable elsewhere. In 1992, under the direction of then newcomer David Fincher, the new instalment of the incredibly successful series landed as Alien³.

After escaping from the alien planet, the ship carrying Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the others crashes into a prison-turned-ore refinery. While recovering and awaiting an air transport home, Ripley discovers her ship had an alien stowaway. As the creature grows and starts to kill the inhabitants, she has to fight the menace once again.

It’s actually a little difficult to conceive of the production nightmare that was Alien³. Between all of abandoned scripts, botched rewrites, directors coming and going, conflicting opinions and the lack of a good single central concept, it’s a wonder the film got made at all. The major driving force behind getting this film made were producers David Giler and Walter Hill. It was these two who wanted to ensure the third film was as conceptually strong as its predecessors. They threw around ideas, hired writers to work things over (including sf novelist William Gibson), looking to see where the spark would come from. Ideas ranged from giant mall space stations with a consumerist angle to a corporate spin involving a rival company to the series’ established Weyland-Yutani with a political edge, from genetically-enhanced Xenomorph species set in dusty little township in Downtown Outer Space to a sect of Luddite monks living on a small wooden planetoid with a heavy religious subtext. There was even one about a prison break on a prison station that didn’t feature Ripley at all. Ideas were not exactly in short supply, but none seemed to have the simplicity that marked the first two. Problem, though, was that they had already announced an official release date and production had already begun on the film, even though a script had not been written or even a direction agreed upon. Hell, just look at the tagline up there. That was produced before the film was completed and there was still some confusion as to whether or not the film was actually set on Earth. That's the extent of how troubled production was.

Frankly, one of Alien³’s major sufferings is that there are so many ideas and notions lying underneath the film, but none of them are adequately developed enough to make any sense. The whole script is a hash of all the ideas considered during the pre-production process. As such, the prison station is kept, with the prisoners merged with the Luddite monk idea and given a Third World labourers feel. The genetic enhancement stuff is dropped, but the idea of a new breed of alien is kept, having it burst forth from a dog, creating a more dog-like creature. There is also the feeling that we’re going over ground that we’ve already covered before. Ripley effectively returns to where she was at the beginning of Aliens, trying to be the one who warns people of the danger, only to be ignored or regarded as crazy. Weirdly, she spends some of the film, skirting the issue, not mentioning the potential alien threat, rather than the potential for a disease outbreak.

David Fincher, here taking his first crack at feature film after much success in commercials and pop promo videos, has pretty much disowned the film. In fact, he left the project so fast, the editing process had not yet even begun. There is a very real attempt from him to engage with the material in a visual way separate from the previous two films. It’s all low angles and slow zooms, covered with a brown grimy hue, and it's decent for the most part. There are other moments that are of lesser quality, specifically the Xenomorph’s perspective chase sequences, using a fish-eye lens and smudgey filter. This had been done to death already by numerous low-end Jaws rip-offs, so it does little in the way of being the fresh new way they were looking for. Fincher shouldn’t really be blamed, though, and he actually did a pretty good job of holding things together. He’s a great director with a superb sense of story and visuals, but he was fighting a losing battle from the get-go on this one.

A short note on the editing, because this is where the holes in the story have to be covered up. It’s here that you can most easily see the evidence of a lack of an overall vision for the film. The opening sequence has no real established pace or mood, the chasm between the events of the last film and this one awkwardly covered with some cheap computer readout nonsense. Those characters deserved a little better than this, but such is the awkward gear change between the last film and this one. Also, it fails to cover up all of the holes. For example, for all intents and purposes, Paul McGann’s character is still lying in a bed in a straightjacket. We don’t know if he was killed or not. There’s no mention of him after that moment. Not even a clumsy throwaway line. Nothing.

Acting overall is actually pretty decent, though you see the occasional mild strain of confusion in Weaver. In the same way that Fincher had to contend with constant last-minute changes, Weaver had to do all this on camera, where everyone could see. There are still moments where we can see the old Ripley in there, though. Tough, intelligent, a telling crack in the voice in a plea for help shows that this is the one who already knows what kind of cost fighting these things comes at. Also, credit to her for doing the Tough Chick Goes Bald here, five years before Demi Moore got so much press for doing the same in G.I. Jane. Other members of the cast get an easier time of it, since they don’t have to deal with anything outside of this instalment. Charles S. Dutton is really good as Dillon, the spiritual leader to the prisoners and apparently one of its most dangerous inmates. Charles Dance is also pretty good, recalling a sense of the understatement of the original film. Most everyone else is interchangeable, with some trying to overact their way out of the pack.

On its own merits, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot going on underneath the whole, as a result of the underdevelopment of so many ideas, with the possible exception of some very late-in-the-game ‘Ripley as Christ’ metaphor of self-sacrifice. However, given our history with the series, on a subtextual level, things seem to rather clumsily return to the notion of rape and matricide, with the added element of abortion. With Ripley having been impregnated with a mother spawn (and having a gestation period way longer than any person before), she knows that she cannot survive the ordeal of birth, and so decides to kill it and herself. Such notions would make a bit more sense in light of the religious aspect of the film as carried by the prisoner populace. However, these ideas are simply not taken advantage of, instead leaving them as largely incomplete thoughts. James Cameron actually had a good seed of an idea that fits nicely into the evolution of the series, following the notion through an exploration of a new family dynamic as set by Ripley, Hicks and Newt. Constant rewrites from multiple writers eventually saw this eliminated. Shame.

Alien³ is, put simply, kind of a mess. There is an attempt made for a particular visual style, which makes things kind of suitably grimy. However, the story is confused, unsure as to what to do with itself and ends up largely treading on ground already covered by the series. Characters are fairly interchangeable, though they do give it a good crack. Whilst not as catastrophic as some may remember it, it is a major step down after the first two.

Aliens (1986)

THIS TIME, THERE'S MORE

Sequels. So often tried, yet it is the popular consensus that they rarely work out. The first film sets the bar and it is the job of the sequel to clear it, but they so regularly fall short that it feels like a bigger disappointment. There are some sequels out there that probably would have been much better received if it wasn’t for the ghost of their predecessor hanging over them. A sequel to Alien especially would have proved a real challenge. Ridley Scott created a superb and highly influential slice of sf terror, made with vision and brains… where exactly do you go from there? James Cameron had an idea, and thus was given his chance in 1986 with Aliens.

Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the only human survivor of the Nostromo, is discovered by a salvage ship after 57 years in deep sleep. Back in civilisation, she learns that the same planet where the alien was first found has since been colonised. When contact with the colony is lost, she is sent back to the planet along with a team of marines to investigate.

Frankly, there’s a certain simple genius to Cameron’s idea of what to do with the follow-up to Alien. A kind of genius that you can actually see in most of his work. If Alien was an intense sf horror picture that couldn’t really be topped, why bother trying? Cameron decided to go in another direction by adding a single letter to the original’s title, turning the fear of one into the fear of many. Cameron was also smart enough to know that he couldn’t really compete with Scott’s powerful sense of dread as a horror, so he would just switch tactics altogether and make it an actioner. From this, Cameron came up with what would be the main conceit of his film: Marines versus Aliens. Thanks to this idea, and the character types that Cameron would utilise to such classic degree, Aliens would go on to be the blueprint for modern commando/military unit movies, including the Predator films that would eventually crossover with this series.

Cameron’s direction is of a much broader sense than Scott’s. That’s not to say that it’s stupid, but it’s a far more dynamic approach. Cameron doesn’t want the audience cowering in their chairs, trying to hide from the beast… he wants them to take the aliens head on. He wants to invoke a kind of infectious panic, but in a good way. Less a quivering, jibbering hysteria; more an active sense of confrontation. He wants you to actually be with these soldiers as they enter hostile territory - apprehensive, but prepared. The sheer badassery of these grunts works well to that point. Michael Biehn’s Hicks is calm and level-headed; Bill Paxton’s Hudson is a loudmouth joker; and Jenette Goldstein’s Vasquez is the Chick-That-Can-Kick-Your-Ass type 14 years before Michelle Rodriguez cornered that market (There’s the classic exchange between Hudson and Vasqeuz: “Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?” “No. Have you?”).

The lesser gung-ho characters fill out proceedings well, too. William Hope’s Gorman is the squad leader, but he’s no field operative, so he’s ill-equipped to deal with disaster and the grunts know it. Paul Reiser plays a typical yuppie shmuck in Carter Burke, who looks so sincere that you know he’s going to do something (weird how, even in the future, 80s slimeballs still exist). Lance Henriksen plays the newly Asimov-ised android Bishop with a nice sense of understatement, though it is rather undercut later on in the final battle (he seems to be an android that can feel pain, despite Ian Holm experiencing none in the first film). Carrie Henn as Newt, though occasionally awkward, does very well here, too. This would be the only film Henn ever did, but she does the traumatised bit quite well. She does revert to screaming a lot when I’m not sure she would have survived like she did with that as her first response, but that’s a flaw in the script, not Henn’s performance. And it does save her at least once.

Then there’s Ripley. There’s a sense in Aliens of a different kind of Ripley. In the first film, she was a much more controlled presence. In her confrontations, she was always the calm one. She responded to pressure not with overly emotional displays of crying or shouting or lashing out; she was smarter than that. In Aliens, her smarts are still there, as is her bravery, but she’s less of a still water running deep. She’s more aggressive, forceful. She should be. She alone knows what the team is going in against, and she’s got a better chance making her point by shouting than whispering. Weaver is more than up to the challenge of this more vigorous version of Ripley. She still has the cleverness and the physicality to do what she has to. Ripley’s still awesome.

There are aspects of the film that border on the ridiculous, but these will only be noticed if you’re not going along with the ride. The final battle between the Queen Xenomorph and Ripley in the power-lifter rig is the true test of this. When the bay doors open and Ripley steps out in that hydraulic monster and utters one of the most quoted lines in film (“Get away from her, you bitch!”), a bit of you should be going “Yeah, let’s kill this alien mother!” If you aren’t enjoying the film, because it’s too different from the first film perhaps, this will be the final straw. As it is, I do find it silly, but enjoyably so.

The picture doesn’t just pummel the audience with dumb action, either. Cameron’s film also has some brains, carrying over thematic concerns from the first. I mentioned in yesterday’s piece about Alien having its horror roots in sex, rape, impregnation and birth. Aliens does let go of the more aggressive aspect of this subtext (i.e. the rape) and focuses more on what would be the next stage in the process: Motherhood. I also mentioned yesterday about the matricidal tendencies of the first, with people killing their mothers, either literally or figuratively. In Aliens, the mothers fight back. Ripley effectively becomes mother to Newt (there are actually deleted scenes in which Ripley, after many years in stasis is told of her own daughter’s death, and also one where Newt, having lost her real parents, expressly asks Ripley to be her new mother), and as such goes to incredible lengths to protect her. Similarly, the Queen Xenomorph goes on a rampage after her own spawn are killed. This dynamic of mother-as-protector even has its own moment when, as Ripley and Newt are trying to escape and end up in the chamber with the Queen and her eggs, Ripley threatens the safety of the eggs with her flamethrower in order to force the Queen to give them safe passage out of the chamber, which the Queen allows. It’s a wonderfully effective scene, as Ripley and the Queen Xenomorph find a brief moment of common ground, from one mother to another.

There are also some arguments that have been made about the Marines ill-fated battles with the intergalactic killer species serving as a comment on the state of US military policy, harkening back to the Vietnam War. There, as far as the popular reading holds, American forces were unprepared and overwhelmed by an enemy they didn’t seem to fully understand. They so underestimated the enemy’s tactical capability and lethality, where enemy forces struck from everywhere without warning, that they were at a loss almost immediately. The Marines do have superior firepower and the will to use it, and as such believe that no enemy can beat them. When they enter what has become the Xenomorph’s home territory, they are hammered so quickly and brutally that their numbers are cut in half in a matter of minutes. So devastating is the attack, that Hudson, the loudmouth of the group, instantly buckles. In what has become one of the most quoted lines of the film, he says, “That’s it, man! Game over, man! Game over!” If Aliens does serve as a sort of critique of US military policy, it does so whilst celebrating the sheer balls of the men and women that are entrusted to enforce such policy.

Overall, I can honestly say I don’t enjoy Aliens nearly as much as I did its predecessor. For me, it lacks the full crafted polish, the unsettling atmosphere, the overwhelming tension that rests beneath every scene, the sense that you are watching a project that has been thoroughly conceived from beginning to end. That said, there is still plenty to enjoy in James Cameron’s crack at the series. The characters are fun to watch, the action sequences are strong and it has an effective adrenaline thrill that is of a completely different variety to Scott’s vision. I don’t really think it quite matches up to the high standard of the first, but it doesn’t really try. It goes in its own direction, and it sure is a fun ride to go on.

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.