Alien

Rating: 7/10 (1 October 2012)

Alien is a suspense film about a crew in space investigating life-form on an unknown planet and end up under attack by one of the native species. The movie is full of surprises keeping tensions high throughout the entire movie. Ridley Scott used many different things to make this movie as scary and stressful for the audience as possible. He uses things like lighting and sounds from the alien to keep you on the edge of your seat for the whole film. I was kind of excited before watching this movie because I have seen many suspense films but, never got around to watching this one before. When looking at it before viewing it, it looked like more of a Sci-Fi movie than a horror movie and that's not really what I'm interested in. After watching Alien I could see that it did have a lot of Sci-Fi elements, obviously with the people in deep space finding an alien that lays eggs inside people that pop out their chests. When looking into it deeper however it's actually a very intense and exciting movie. The fact that the alien had a means of getting around the ship without the crew knowing where he was made the alien that much more frightening. With the alien moving through the air ducts you never know who will be attacked next which really adds to the suspense of the film. Also it added the possibility of the captain going into the air ducts after the alien. This confined quarter trying to find an alien loose in your spaceship is a very scary thought. Having the air ducts for the alien to crawl through really added to the scariness of the movie. Sigourney Weaver was an excellent choice to portrait Ellen Ripley in my opinion. She was a sort of take charge make decisions type of character. It was easy to tell from the beginning that Ripley was the one who knew what was going on and made the smart choices for every situation. The way Weaver played the character knowing what's best and taking charge really gave the made the character more relatable, and made the movie as a whole a lot better. When they let the alien in to the ship you could really see that she was concerned and didn't want this to happen. Weaver was a great actress to cast for this character. In Alien the lighting was used especially in toward the end of the movie to really enhance the experience of the movie. This is very much the case when they are trying to escape the main ship and set off the self-destruct action on the ship. This causes the lights to go on and off constantly like a strobe light so you can't really see what's going on. Due to this you never know if the alien is right next to her or if he's not even in the shot. Also the sounds of the alien kind of added to the movie as well. Whenever you here the screeching sound of the alien you know something bad is going to happen. This was made clear when Ripley is on the escape ship thinking she got away then you hear the alien. This is a very creepy knowing that its close quarters now. These two aspects combined make for a very scary experience. The way in which the alien got into the ship is very scary as well. Having an unknown creature stick to your face and lay eggs inside you is weird enough, and then having it burst through your chest makes it even worse. I think using this instead of having the alien sneak onto the ship or something makes it so much scarier. This just isn't what is expected and really grosses out and scares the audience. Considering the fact that this movie was made in nineteen seventy-nine the alien creature is very realistic. This is what makes the movie believable and keeps the audience interested. This has to be very hard with Sci-Fi movies because none of the things happening in these movies have ever happened and probably never will happen. Looking at how the alien appears though helps the audience to see this as a real thing that could happen. When watching this movie just keep in mind that it's all fake and will probably never happen.