One of the Scariest Horror Movies of All Time!!!

Rating: 10/10 (18 September 2016)

Ridley Scott's "Alien" ranks as one of the greatest sci-fi horror sagas of all time. If you haven't seen this landmark epic that spawned a franchise, then you haven't experienced genuine dread. Happily, the years haven't robbed this terrific gem of its skin crawling repulsion. Three sequels that followed in its wake, but only James Cameron's "Aliens" came close to replicating its intensity. Like any good film, "Alien" boasts several surprises that will catch you off guard and alarm you. Most of the action is confined to the murky confines of a shadowy spacecraft with passages galore. Reportedly, Scott and scenarist Dan O'Bannon were influenced by director Edward L. Cahn's "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" (1958) and Mario Bava's "Planet of the Vampires" (1964) with Barry Sullivan. It is easy to see the resemblance in the plot between "Alien" and Cahn's epic where a monster boards a spacecraft before it blasts off and the crew spent the entire flight battling the monster as it corners the heroes. On the other hand, the set design in the Bava film is virtually replicated in Scott's film. Mind you, neither of those two inspirations is anywhere near as chilling as "Alien." The eponymous monster is a memorable predator that you won't soon forget. Indeed, coursing through the veins of this lethal life-form is acid that eats through the metal hull of the ship.
In Scott's atmospheric film takes place in the year 2122. A commercial cargo vessel named the Nostromo is heading home when the ship's computer receives an SOS distress signal, and the seven members constituting the crew awaken from hyper-sleep in their individual sleeping pods and goes to a planet to investigate the signal. They land on this inhospitable planet and check things out. One of the crew, Kane (John Hurt of "Heaven's Gate") finds himself in an eerie setting, a garden within the hull of a derelict ship that contain curious organisms in small silos. Kane makes the mistake of peering too closely at one of them and the dome shape of the egg peels itself back ominously and something icky surges out of it and penetrates the face plate of his helmet. This nasty organism attaches itself to Kane's face, while another part of it plunges down his gullet, and its snake-like tail coils around his neck. Kane's shipmates rush their fallen colleague back aboard the Nostromo despite the protests of Science Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver of "Ghostbusters") who doesn't think that Kane should be brought aboard. Ripley fears that Kane has been infected with something hazardous. Nostromo ship captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt of "M.A.S.H.") intervenes on Kane's behalf and allows him to be brought aboard. They confine Kane to quarantine so they can analyze the creature clinging tenaciously to his face. Miraculously, the creature strangling Kane releases him, collapses to the floor and scuttles away like vermin. Kane revives none the worse for wear, and everybody celebrates his recovery.
The sense of relief proves at best ephemeral. While the crew is indulging in a gluttonously repast, Kane coughs and then sprawls onto their table and goes into a palsy. As his shipmates struggle to restrain him, Kane heaves and a pickle-shaped demon erupts from his chest and tears off into the shop. At this point, the dwarf-like critter grows into a huge, ugly creature with a double-set of ravenous jaws. One by one, it eliminates the shipmates until only Ripley is left. In this respect, Scott's grisly film resembles a slasher film because Ripley qualifies as 'the final girl.' Ripley manages to activate the self-destruction phase, after she rescues her cat, and slips into an escape shuttle. Unfortunately, Dallas dies during the final moments after the self-destruct sequence is set into motion. Ripley and Jones make it into the shuttle and prepare for the long voyage back to Earth. Little does poor Ripley realize that the alien beast escaped from the Nostromo before it was obliterated. Eventually, she is able to blow the monster out of the ship. "Alien" garnered an Oscar for Best Special Effects.