Cast: Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Ian Holm

Director: Ridley Scott

Screenplay: Dan O’Brannon

Running time: 2 hrs 4 mins

Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror



CRITIQUE:


In the late 1960s, Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey redefined science-fiction. Since then, the ripples undulated towards the cinema of the intergalactic. Most of the successful Hollywood films that followed were about space frontiers, and it was in the late 70s that George Lucas introduced Star Wars, which would later create decades of sequel hoopla and millions of fanboy cults. But at the turn of the decade arrived Ridley Scott’s Alien – a film that had set the blueprint for the sci-fi-horror genre, incalculably imitated but never bettered. Until now, with the exception of James Cameron’s superb follow-up Aliens, Scott’s seminal monster-in-the-dark creature-feature remains to be the craftiest, brilliantly made science-fiction-cum-horror movie of all-time. And to add to its genre-bending ability, it’s also a cracking slasher movie, but in space, that is. Be reminded, the land of America at the time was at the phase of Area-51-extraterrestial paranoia – so how would a simple plot of a space crew being sent to a distant planet to investigate a distress call, lands on the bosom of alien breeding, the alien (almost unseen) kills off everyone, of course except Ripley, the heroine, be so effective? It’s because Scott invested in his production design and his thrill mechanism. The groundbreaking set designs had been the stuff that Gothic comic-book fans’ dreams are made of, dark, ghoulish and unapologetically sinister. And Scott and cohorts did not rush to get to the exciting bits, just for the sake of showcasing their genius creation: the Alien. From the stylish opening credits, spaceship in space, to the discovery of the anomalous terrain – audience expecting for guttural moments had to wait for it to come – nevertheless making this extraordinary because unlike many less-spectacular horror movies, they indulge in orgiastic misuse of violence, whilst Alien is that bogeyman in the dark shadows, you barely see it, and it knows how to build up tension. Even the camerawork glides and slides in and out of tubes, passageways, and tunnels of the ship like a grim, eerie poetry. Like great sci-fi films, there are elements of claustrophobia explored, loneliness and man’s greed to explore every nook and cranny of the universe it dwells in, yet in Alien, one of cinema’s feistiest heroines was born in the form of Ripley, a tempestuous performance by Sigourney Weaver, who still remains as one of the most convincing female leads in cinematic history. It’s because she only believes one thing: destroy anything that compromises human existence. And we, humans, really root for her.


VERDICT:

Extraordinarily groundbreaking sci-fi-horror masterpiece. Alien might be slow-burning to some – but that is no flaw, in fact, it’s the film’s secret asset.



RATING: A+