Before Ridley Scott was telling Russell Crowe to lob off heads and assorted other limbs in Gladiator, he directed this space epic, hailed by a terrorized nation of 1979 as being one of the scariest films ever made! This is the classic tale of terror in deep space (where no one can hear you scream by the way). It stars Sigourney Weaver as the ultimate heroine and sole survivor: Lt. Ripley. Much of the flick's design was done by my personal Michelangelo, H.R. Giger, who brings a oddly disturbing feel to the film, which is a feet in itself, considering I'm not the kind of person who gets disturbed often!
The story centers around the Nostromo: a big intergalactic mining ship, that's on it's way back to Earth to drop off it's payload. On the way there, the crew (consisting of Lt. Ripley, her lover/captain Dallas [oh no, Tom Skerritt!], and five other victims) receives a distress signal from a seemingly abandoned planet. They go to check out what the problem is, and upon exploring the seemingly lifeless orb, they find a large ship. Inside, one of the crew gets an unwelcome passenger when a big reptilian insect thing lodges itself to his face! It's easy to see why these things are later referred to as "face huggers". Anyway, the bug makes him comatose, yet seems to sustain his life functions, in a symbiotic or viral way. Why not just cut the damn thing off right? Wrong. The ship's doctor attempts to, but discovers that the creature bleeds acid! Make a big enough cut, and it might eat right through the ship's hull and suck out the air like a whore on rent day! Soon, when no one's looking, the beastie detaches itself and dies, leaving the guy none the worse for wear. The doc keeps the little monster for testing, and Kane (the guy it was latched to) feels nothing more than a major case of the munchies! Maybe the thing pumps THC into your system...
Anyway, we learn that there is something more to the creature's visit than just the munchies, when Kane throws himself around and has a seizure, resulting in another monster ripping out of his chest! This one resembles a sperm with fangs (nice thought, eh ladies?), and skitters off to the dark recesses of the ship, leaving Kane dead. Now, in danger, the crew spreads out to look for the monster sperm. Turning into Friday the 13th: In Space, the beast grows up into a far more dangerous creature, then proceeds to mutilate the crew one-by-one. Ripley uncovers another unpleasant surprise though, when she learns that the S.O.S. mission was all a plan from the start by "the company" to pick up this alien lifeform for use in a biological weapons experiment, leaving the crew as "necessary losses"! To help carry out this evil scheme, "the company" planted a mole in the crew, in the form of their ship doctor! Yep, that snide asshole Ash is a robot! And when his main directive is compromised, he reacts with force, attempting to choke Ripley to death with space porn! However, Rip and her last remaining partners manage to destroy Ash, then decide that the only thing they can do is hop in their escape pod, and blow the ship to Hell, along with the Alien. Too bad for Rip that it's gonna be a LONG and lonely ride home, seeing as how her friends both wind up Alien chow anyway. Not one to give up on self preservation, Rip goes ahead with the plan, escaping the ship and blowing it to oblivion. This would've been the perfect (although overly destructive) plan, had the Alien not hitched a ride, tangled up inside the pod! No worries though, because after stripping to her underwear and opening the pod door, the alien gets sucked out nice and clean, then burned to a crisp via the pod's booster rockets. So, Rip is left on her own with nothing else between her and Earth other than a long snooze.
Not only did Giger's amazing (yet erotic) art make this movie a visual fucking masterpiece, but Scott's just plain awesome direction set a very eerie and solitary feel, making you feel just a tad claustrophobic before you wanna freak out and piss yourself! This is one of those movies I REALLY wish I'd been born 10 years earlier for, so I could have seen the majesty and scare tactics of a big screen presentation! Hey, they did it for Star Wars and The Exorcist, why not Alien?! Someone get Ridley Scott's ass on the phone...
The Moral of the Story: "In space, no one can hear you scream"... come on, you knew that one was coming.
DVD X-tras: Shit, the opening of the DVD itself is awesome! Gotta love a good animated menu! Features include TV commercials and theatrical trailers (many of which are "if you've seen one, you've seen em all" type stuff); Outtakes for Kane making breakfast and for a shot that featured the Alien moving all too human-like; several different audio tracks, including a commentary track by Ridley Scott, an alternate music and sound FX track, and an all music track; a few deleted scenes (which includes the important and much talked of cocoon scene, which I can't figure out the reason for them taking this out); and shit load of art, photos, and promotional stuff from the movie! See the many drool inducing works of H.R. Giger, a bunch of storyboard work and other production pieces, as wells as pics of a chestburster T-shirt (I'd sell my soul if I had one, just to get this shirt!) and some never released action figures! By far the coolest of the Aliens Legacy DVD collection! Makes that $250 I paid for the player all worth it... almost... how many times have I said that already?
Sequels: Aliens ; Alien 3 ; Alien Resurrection
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- It's just not a party movie kids. It's beautiful, it's suspenseful, it's as close to committing art to celluloid as you're likely to find, especially in this kind of genre. And that's exactly why you should embrace it at home with a bottle of room temperature red instead of on a couch with a cold one between your legs and two bodies on either side of you who haven't showered in a few days.
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Blade Runner or
The Thing
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