Horror movies prove again and again, it's not what you do but the way that you do it.
After all it's just scared people creeping round dark places waiting for someone of something to kill them.If you set it in space, an environment most of us are unfamiliar with, it makes the movie more challenging. If you can't relate to the situation...the audience simply won't care who survives the slaughter, or be bothered about why. Ridley Scott knew this from the start so he fused The Shining with 2001 with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And boy, it works.
Keeping things real, gritty and down-to-earth...we follow a bunch of blue collar space truckers as they're obliged to investigate a mysterious alien beacon, far from home. By making them, and their environment lived in and realistic...we identify with the poor saps, making us care for them when Mr Giger's horrific creation get hungry. Scott casts a group of engaging individuals who we get to like, despite not saying a lot. The set design utterly unique, transforming the european sci-fi illustrations of Morbius into living, breathing workplaces. Everything from the nightmarish alien planet, spacesuit designs, Giger's Aliens (in whatever form)are different from anything that's been seen before or since (apart from the corridors...everybody does the dark, metal grilled corridors).
The robot company-man subplot gives the monster movie extra depth and the set-pieces are buttock-clenchingly tense. Of course, the chestburster scene is justifiably legendary but it's Ripleys mad-dash escape from the Nostromo where the films really in top gear.
A land mark piece of film making. Just because a film's got a simple plot with few characters doesn't mean little effort is required, Indeed, the more imagination, the greater the movie's transformation. Maybe some one ought to tell Twentieth Century Fox before they butcher the Alien franchise once more with another prequel.
1 comment:
Not much to really say here except I totally agree.
Alien is a timeless work of pure cinematic genius. You could watch this film in fifty years time and it will still look just as nifty and play just as brilliantly. With the John Hurt chest burster scene it also conains arguably the scariest, grossest and most iconic moment in screen history. A true classic.
And the sequel ain't too shabby either.
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