An exercise in cool, calculating visceral horror

Rating: Null/10 (1 September 2015)

Ridley Scott's first mainstream Hollywood film is still fresh and powerful 30+ years after it was first released. The story of a commercial spaceship crew diverted to explore a distant planet as a result of the detection of mysterious signal getting themselves an extremely unwanted visitor and the subsequent horror than ensues makes this a landmark science fiction horror film. A fairly straightforward plot is helped by Scott creating a truly superb visually arresting atmosphere, thanks to great work by production designer Michael Seymour and cinematographer Derek Van Lint. It starts of epic, then transitions to the mundane, before building a growing sense of uneasiness leading to claustrophobic suspense and dread that just keeps building and building until, in the final act it turns into a nerve-wracking horror- thriller as key characters fight for survival.
While Ridley Scott deserves great credit in pulling this all together so well, kudos has also to go to the whole cast for creating a wonderfully naturalistic approach to their roles, and being able to define their characters so uniquely and clearly, even if they are archetypes – Yaphet Kotto as the engineer with a chip on his shoulder regarding the preferential pay that the officers get, who nevertheless when the chips are down does demonstrate heroic qualities; Harry Dean Stanton as the fellow engineer who may have some form of brain damage, possibly brought on by historic substance abuse but knows the mechanics of the ship inside-out; Veronica Cartwright as the ships navigator, who acts as the link to the audience as a professionalism is gradually striped away as she is consumed by fear; Ian Holm as Ash, the enigmatic and quiet science officer who has only just jointed the crew at the start of this journey; John Hurt as the curious, fearless and gung- ho second in command, Tom Skerritt as the level headed, approachable but experienced Captain, and of course Sigourney Weaver (for whom this was her first film in a significant role) as what seems to be the young, less experienced but confident and assertive career-driven up and comer Ripley. The growing tensions between the characters, particularly the way that all the character butt heads with Weaver's character works well in the development of the story, and despite relative inexperience Weaver is terrific in the role, and helped create an iconic character in science fiction that would lead to three sequels.
Kudos also has to go to the technical crew for creating a terrific atmosphere for the actors to work in – this was helped by Scott deciding to film the movie in chronological order of the story rather than a more typical logistical shooting order. The decision to hire the dark surreal artist HR Giger certainly brought a fresh new look to science fiction, but Michael Seymour's production design is truly brilliant and the way that the Alien is presented on screen is still pretty much the best – keeping its appearances limited and quick – nerves are so shredded by the end of the movie that seeing the monster in more extended full body shots where it is more obvious that it's a man in suit doesn't pull you out of the picture. Credit has also got to go to the brilliant Oscar winning visual effects team – as well as the aforementioned HR Giger, it also included in-camera effects from both Nick Alder and Brian Johnson, and excellent miniature photography from Dennis Ayling. Alder had cut his teeth as a director of effects photography on the Gerry Anderson TV show 'Space 1999'. After Alien, he has worked as an on-set special effects expert on an array of films including Empire Strikes Back, Conan the Barbarian(1982 version), Legend, Jewel of the Nile, Leon, Braveheart, Lost in Space, Behind Enemy Lines, Blade 2, Underworld, Hellboy, Shanghai Knights, Ghost Rider, and would win a BAFTA for best visual effects for the Luc Besson film The 5th Element. Johnson's early credits including work as a special effects assistant on 2001, before also cutting his teeth on Space 1999 as a 2nd unit director overseeing the visual effects. After Alien he would work on a variety of films including Never-ending Story, Dragonslayer, Slipstream, Dragonheart as well as winning another Oscar for best visual effects for Empire Strikes Back and a BAFTA for his work on Aliens. Carlo Rimbaldi was already an Oscar winning special effects veteran of over 20 films prior to working on Alien, and had just prior to this film completed work on both King Kong (for which he had won his prior Oscar) and Close Encounters. He would go on to win a third academy award for his work on E.T, and would go onto work on Conan the Destroyer and Dune. Denis Ayling followed this film as a cinematographer in British Television. Giger's did occasionally work on other films (creature designer on Alien 3, visual designer on Species) but his legacy is that the basic Alien look and design influence has survived through 3 excellent to OK Alien sequels, two poor Alien v Predator crossover movies, two disappointing Alien prequels, a batch of (very bad) Species sequels.
Another noticeable contributor to the film's mood was the music – which should have been credited to Ridley Scott and Editor Terry Rawlings. Jerry Goldsmith's original score was extensively edited, cues moved around and classic music from other compositions fitted into the scores, but nevertheless somehow the music works very well.
All of this helped make Alien a truly outstanding movie. The atmosphere created is so visceral that the film always leaves you with an impact after when the film is over
Overall a landmark science-fiction classic.