eyes riveted to the screen

Rating: 8/10 (30 December 2016)

For a film that came out in 1979, the visual quality was amazing. I was tense literally the ENTIRE time I was watching the movie, from the moment the letters of ALIEN coalesced onto the backdrop of that planet to the very end. Google "Alien" and you'll see the basic plot summary, that of a And Then There Were None device of characters being killed off one by one. Knowing that, you know, you already know and are put in suspense before the movie even starts, that characters are going to die, that people will be killed by an alien. Thus the title Alien.
The soundtrack matches perfectly with the tension. The orchestra plays sharp notes suddenly at the right moments. When the music begins to keen that recurring motif, you know someone's gonna die. You keep telling certain characters to not do certain things. How stupid we are, humans. How weak we are, humans. We can do essentially nothing with our bodies against unknown species from different worlds, with physiques and adaptive capabilities we can never hope to have.
The acting? Oh it's perfect as well. Like Star Wars did for Harrison Ford, this film made Sigourney Weaver famous. How she reacts to the increasingly horrific situation is masterful, very human. Do we endanger the lives of our fellow crew to save another, or lose that one person to save the crew? What can we do, really, against something unknown? It is the unknown that scares us most, for the known can be analyzed, evaluated, and at least gauged in terms of danger. But for the unknown, the possibilities are endless.
I found myself imagining myself in one of those crew member's shoes, but with a super power so that I could better tackle the alien. But sadly we humans don't have super powers. And that's what precisely makes Alien such a superb flick, for it depicts a struggle for survival between weak humans and an alien that's scary as hell. Watching Alien is like watching Jaws -- you never know when it will strike again.