I knew the day would come when I would have to talk about Ridley Scott's Sci-Fi/horror masterpiece Alien, it's just a matter of when I would find that opportunity. Ironically enough with the release of Alien: Romulus back in August as well as the reminder of Ridley Scott's second film now officially turning 45 years of age, also it's Halloween I figured well now the time has come. Alien to me is most certainly one of Ridley Scott's greatest movies of all time, up there with films like Blade Runner, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven and the Martian. Though this was the first and original of the Alien movie franchises I would most certainly say it's still the scariest movie of the golden age of cinema considering that it was originally intended to be a typical B-movie slog that now one would expect to be what it is today.
In deep space, the crew of the commercial starship Nostromo is awakened from their cryo-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel. The terror begins when the crew encounters a nest of eggs inside the alien ship. An organism from inside the egg leaps out and attaches itself to one of the crew, causing him to fall into a coma.
A lot of people don't know that this iconic Alien creature, was nearly close to just being a typical b-movie monster nothing special and 20th Century Fox wasn't all interested in giving it a bigger budget for obvious reasons science fiction wasn't big in the early seventies this was long before Star Wars changed everything and once Star Wars changed the game Sci-Fi was becoming the go too genre for movies, now than 20th Century Fox had to make Alien it's next feature film to make. Ridley Scott surprisingly wasn't the first director to be approached for the movie through the course of financing the film, they tried to hire directors like John Boorman, Jack Clayton, Robert Aldrich, and Robert Altman for which sure some of them have good movies I like well, Aldrich and maybe Altman? But deep down I would never in a million years accept those directors to direct a horror film like this and because Ridley has great attention to detail furthermore reads the script, so you know you have a great director when you have someone who reads the script and has a great eye for the visuals. Now I can go on for hours and hours of Ridley being a great director but I have to give all those people who don't get a whole lot of credit and really there's two one is H.R. Giger and Jerry Goldsmith, first person we're going to talk about is most certainly H.R. Giger whose responsible for creating the iconic look of the Xenomorph design, and back then when you’re trying to create a something new and original nothing to the extent of making a bad B-movie monster Giger's design of creating both the facehugger, the chestburster and finally the Xenomorph is extraordinary and so terrifying that no wonder this man won in Oscar for Visual Effects along with his fellow collaborators. Jerry Goldsmith on the other hand (who also did another of my favorite films the Mummy) does a fantastic job with creating a deep space unknown feel to the film and transitions to a suspenseful horror that even this man deserves a ton of credit even though I wished this guy got more Oscar nod for Alien than the first Star Trek film but deep down, you can't get what you want in life. There’s a grand total of seven main cast members in the movie and only one in the Alien suit but if I had to pick out one of the main cast members who really does an excellent job in the movie, it would most certainly be the late Ian Holm who when you watch the first time you see him as in ally and learns what a manipulator he is and when you watch this movie a bunch of times like I have the was a true manipulator all along. Ridley Scott is a great visual director but he's also a master of WTF moments and Alien was most certainly the Godfather of WTF moments I mean sure I've seen John Hurts giving birth scene so many times that sure you wouldn't be so scared but even the scenes when Tom Skeritt is in the ventilation shaft and it's so cramp and crawling to find the creature even I at times just want to cringe because if I was in there I would most certainly run for my life and even the jump scare seals it for me, but getting to the point this film yes is 45 years old but it's still incredible with its jump scares to the visuals and even the WTF moments I mean hell it's the reason why I haven't sat down and played Alien: Isolation which deep down I do know I need to face my fears and play that game because I love the Alien film. If you want a good lesson on how to sell a movie watch the original Alien trailer and you can find it on YouTube because anything good and easy to find is most certainly on YouTube and watch how they don't show anything not the creature just some out of focus and shocking things that would keep you on the edge of your seat and then cut to the Nostromo space ship and the famous line "In Space no one can hear you scream" and just end there, and really is the greatest trailer ever created because it draws you into something that is both terrifying and sou suspenseful that you have to watch it so, hopefully you all go on YouTube right now and watch that trailer. My niece I would imagine would not be all interested in the first Alien film but would most certainly love Alien: Romulus, but for all of you millennial's or Generation X out there I would highly recommend watching the very first Alien film and luckily is on Hulu, it’s a true horror classic from start to finish I’ll say again a godfather of WTF moments but more importantly if you’re a fan of the Alien films like I am it’s sort of a relatable movie considering that all the films have corporations that literally don’t care for us human beings and that’s kind of what we’re living in right now so, in a strange sense all the Alein films are relatable in a bizarre sense. Though their separate versions of the film, both the 1979 version and the Directors Cut so, whichever version you watch just note that for sure you need to watch both films but are also incredible just like both versions of the original Star Wars.