Alien 1979, Ridley Scott

Rating: 5/10 (10 June 2014)

Alien is a British film from 1979. It's genre is both science fiction and horror and it takes about two hours. The movie Alien stars, Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto.
The story takes place in 2122. A spaceship travels to planet Earth, loaded with ore. There are seven people present on the spaceship which are: Dallas, Ash, Kane, Parker Brett and two women.
The film starts with a signal being sent out by another planet to the spaceship. The spaceship has an advanced computer on board which they call the Mother. The Mother reacts to the signal of the unknown planet after which the spaceship changes course towards the planet. The members of the spaceship land on the planet and start investigating. They find an old crashed spaceship and enter it. Firstly they find a pilot's dead body. After that, they find eggs of which one cracks. A strange organism comes out and attacks one of the spaceship members, Kane. Kane is unconscious and the other spaceship members bring him back to their own spaceship. The strange organism sucked itself to the face of Kane. The others try to get it off and the organism started to produce a certain fluid which creates holes in the spaceship. They leave the room to look at how bad the damage is, and when they come back the organism has strangely disappeared. Kane came back to conscious and cannot remember anything. They start looking for the organism and find it dead on the ground.
In the evening when the group members are having dinner, Kane becomes ill and another strange organism, with a tail this time, comes out of his chest. The organism flees and the spaceship members start looking for the organism. They find its skin and it looked like it had melted. Brett finds the organism which had changed since the last time they saw it coming out of Kane's chest. It became bigger, the tail became sharp, and got very large teeth and a stabbing tongue. The creature kills Brett immediately. Dallas comes up with the idea to use a flame thrower to drive away the creature back in to space. While Dallas is on his mission, the others hear him scream, Dallas seems to have been disappeared.
The transport company of the spaceship orders the members of the spaceship not to kill the creature but to catch it for investigation. Ash starts attacking Ripley when he hears about this dangerous request. Parker then attacks Ash to protect Ripley after which Ash turns out to be a robot. The rest of the spaceship members destroy him/it, and want to leave the spaceship with the backup capsule. Before they leave, they first have to search for coolant for the shuttle and the cat they lost in the beginning. When Ripley and Jones start searching for the cat and the rest for the coolant, Ripley hears the others scream. When Ripley and Jones run towards the screaming but the others are already killed. Ripley and Jones decide to leave to the backup capsule and blow up the spaceship. When the spaceship is blown up and Jones and Ripley are in the backup capsule, they find out the creature is inside the backup capsule. Ripley succeeds in getting it out. Finally they can start the cryosleep, and they start waiting for another spaceship to find them
General opinion We share the opinion that the movie 'Alien' is a bit old-fashioned and outdated. Nowadays we are able to create spectacular effects in movies which make horror/science-fiction movies very realistic and frightening. Since this movie is produced in 1979, the techniques and special effects used to create drama are not very impressive to us. We do understand that people would find it impressive at that time because they weren't used to other techniques yet. What is positive about the movie is that right from the beginning there is a suspicion of something scary to happen. The tension is built up slowly, so the scary moments do not come all out of nowhere. The camera-work of the movie helps the tension being built up. By filming from certain angles, certain objects look bigger and more scary. By very fast camera movements the tension also increases. The dark setting of the movie also adds to a scary atmosphere of the horror movie.
Analysis and detailed opinion The first part of the movie where they enter the spaceship and travel was quite boring and extensive. However the part where an unknown creature appeared was very shocking and unexpected, but we did like the fact that something finally happened. The scene in the movie where the creature came out of Kane's chest was one of the scariest parts of the movie because it was unpleasant to look at. A very unexpected twist to the story is when it turns out that Ash is a robot, nobody saw this coming. For us, it was a bit unnecessary because it does not add anything to the story besides drama. The part where the spaceship members are being killed is shocking and a bit disgusting. The end where Ripley and Jones succeed in leaving the spaceship without the creature is a quite ''happy'' ending and gives us a good closure. Although not everyone has survived, it is a good ending.
Conclusion and opinion Alien is an intense movie with lots of suspense. Most people refer to the movie as being one of the classiest movies in its genre. We do not quite agree with that opinion because of the information above about the old-fashioned atmosphere of the movie. Not everyone would like this movie because of the dark setting, which is another factor why we disliked this movie. When watching the movie, you should take into account that it may contain scary en frightening images, which not everyone can handle.