An object exercise in visceral terror

Rating: 10/10 (14 September 1999)

After 20 years, this is still the scariest and most suspenseful film I have ever seen. I was left rather in the cold after seeing James Cameron's sequel, Aliens, which is still very good, but can't hold a candle to Ridley Scott's classic in terms of shear terror. Some people complain that Alien is slow and thinking about it the pace of the actual script is leisurely. Yet from the start Scott creates an atmosphere that you can cut with a knife and moves the film along so that two hours pass by all too quickly. Its basically a haunted house in space as Scott preys on everyone's primal fears about the bogey man fear of the dark... and takes them too their extremes. Production values art direction, SFX, Jerry Goldsmith's score and performances from Weaver especially but also from British stars Ian Holm and John Hurt (Until he gets serious tummy trouble) is impeccable. The famous scene when the alien bursts out of his stomach still makes me feel queasy and this is an objective exercise in understated direction and the fear of the unknown (you don't see the creature until the very end) that is far scarier than Cameron's 1986 blast fest. A classic. 10/10!