Alien

Alien title

Tag line : In space, no one can hear you scream.

Alien It's hard to believe that this Classic Sci-Fi / Horror film, starring Sigourney Weaver, came out over 20 years ago and that they're still making sequels and spin-offs to it to this day.

Directed by Ridley Scott, Alien is set in the farthest regions of outer space, aboard a giant space freighter the "Nostromo" . The freighter crew are awoken from hypersleep prematurely, when their ships computer picks up a distress beacon from a crashed ship on a nearby planet.

Taking their shuttle, the crew touch down and find the wreckage of an ancient space craft. The cargo hold of the craft, appears to be full of giant "Eggs". One of the crew, Kane (John Hurt), decides to have a closer look at one of them. As he stoops down to look, the top of the egg opens up and a creature leaps out and attaches itself to his face.

Efforts to remove the slimy "facehugger" creature fail, as it has acid for blood and so they can not amputate its legs. Eventually though, the creature detaches itself and appears to die. All seems well, Kane regains consciousness, none the worse for his ordeal, and the crew prepare to return to their hypersleep chambers.

But then, as they sit down for a last meal, Kane starts convulsing violently. As the crew try to hold him down, his chest explodes and an Alien creature bursts out from within him (blood everywhere). One quick funeral later, and the hunt is on to find the alien. Unfortunately, the small creature that emerged from Kane's chest isn't so small any more, much to the dismay of crewman Brett (poor old Harry Dean Stanton) who becomes the first victim.

And so the scene is set for a battle to the death, as the crew prepare to fight for their lives. There are some really great suspense scenes, particularly when captain Dallas (Tom Skerrit) meets his demise in the ventilation shaft, and when the creature sneaks up on Parker and Lambert, (Yaphet Kotto and Veronica Cartwright) when they're trying to abandon ship.

Another interesting plot twist which proved quite shocking for its day, is the scene where Ash (Ian Holm) attacks Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). Parker bashes him around the head with an iron bar to stop him, and his head comes flying off. The initial shock factor of this is quite extreme, but quickly disappears when his neck spurts lubrication fluids instead of blood, revealing him to be an android.

The film is a definite "must see" for all horror and sci-fi fans alike. If you haven't seen it yet, where have you been? You also get to see Sigourney Weaver being chased around the shuttle in just her underwear, so what more excuse do you need?

Overall Rating 9/10.

Other Information.

H.R.Giger designed the original Alien and facehugger creatures however, the actual Chestburster was created and built by special effects designer Derek Meddings, based on a thumbnail sketch by director Ridley Scott. Apparently Giger's original sketch of the chestburster looked like a giant, bald, demented, turkey, and the director hated it.

The industrial looking set designs where created by special effects artist Ron Cobb. He also worked with Ridley Scott on the film "Blade Runner".

Various DVD and laserdisc box set releases of the "Alien" saga have included several deleted scenes, that would have added an additional 18 minutes to the films running time. These included, Ripley asking Lambert if she'd ever slept with Ash. A longer take of Kane waking from hypersleep, then making breakfast for the rest of the crew. Part of a scene with the crew listening to Parker over the headset, who's cornered the Alien but before he can flush it out the airlock someone sounds an alarm and scares it off, additional scenes of dialogue between Brett and Parker and a scene showing Ripley finding Dallas still alive, but cocooned for safe keeping in a scene similar to that used in Aliens.

A special "directors cut" of the film was released theatrically in the US and UK in 2003 and later that year on a special "Alien Quadroligy" DVD box set. This version cut down the length of many of the scenes, but re-instated several previously cut scenes, including the crew listening to the alien distress call over the radio and the aforementioned cocoon scene.

In December 1978, a rough cut of this film, featuring ALL of the completed scenes was screened once in London. However, rumour has it that the print screened was 165 minutes long - which would indicate that there was either a lot more extra footage, or that the film was screened in slow motion