Alien (1979)

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2012)

This is a horror movie mixed with science fiction. A long travel in space and landing on an unknown planet is quite surreal; the addition of an alien being wanted on earth is unimaginable. The author did well incorporating both a scary side with abnormal. The nature and setting of the movie was ideal in creating the fear. This crew of 7 people returning back to earth in their spaceship happens to stop on another planet. In principle, their stop was supposedly to check out what was an SOS signal however, it was planned by the organization that sent them out; as they were in search of an indestructible alien. Firstly, I believe that the limited setting managed to keep the viewers on their toes. Because they landed on an extremely dark planet with limited lighting, we were in suspense wondering what could pop out at anytime. In horror movies, the daylight means respite from any dangerous attacks however with the constant darkness, there was no hiding from danger. The characters curiosity also plays a part. Despite almost being obliged to explore the planet, they felt the need to go explore the spaceship. Plus, Dallas and Ash were okay keeping the alien on board to examine it. This keeps the suspense because they need to find out extra on an unknown planet. Thus we never knew what to expect except for something sinister. Knowing that the humans were solely in the spaceship meant that the alien could have popped out of anywhere whether they expected it or not. Meaning they had nowhere to run. To be effectively scary, the rotation of sinister sounds and silence has to be perfect. I believe the silence in this movie was at times over-exaggerated. The movie starts off with lots of silence till we find the crew who are all inside that cabin. At the same time, when the alien comes into action, things become more interesting. The sounds make us guess when the alien will strike - the different moments of silence and sounds keep you edgy. You think the alien will strike then some seconds later you don't. I think the way the crew members communicate also builds up to the death of most of the crew members. There is some negative communication amongst the members. Examples are breaking of the quarantine rules. Their lack of trust in one another leaves the viewers haggling over who to believe and who to be suspicious of. We also make up our minds about who will be first to get killed because of their active or inactive parts in the movie. I did not see Ash getting killed by the alien because he seemed relaxed and almost happy to have it on-board; at the same time, I saw Brett getting killed because he barely said a thing. The roles played defined who got killed and who survived longer. I think the background sounds were orchestras playing. Sometimes, the strings (violin) seemed to be the more obvious sounds but they mostly sound like symphonies. These somber noises are to create the scary atmosphere. In between the long silences, you hear a lot of those sounds. Even before the alien came into the fold, there were those sounds. However, around the moment Ripley defeats the alien, we get the integration of softer music. Obviously, after she rids herself of the alien, the soft music keeps going. This changes the mood from the usual scary suspense to victory. Along with the soft sounds, Ripley is dressed in all white when she kills the alien. The movie is extremely dark all the way through but around the time she will be victorious, she puts on the spacesuit. To also kill it with a sort of white blast is interesting. We see the integration of the white when she wins. The only other person who wore white was Ash but we found out that he was a bad guy. I believe the white signified hero in Ripley's case but it also pointed out that Ash was not a good guy because everyone was dressed in more tattered clothes with darker colors. This guy was out of the ordinary.
I believe the movie drags on. It takes an hour of the movie to get the alien fully grown and causing terror inside the space shuttle. This results in a limit of action. In reality, there were not many moments of fright except for when the alien was going to strike. To better the situation, the characters could have encountered the alien then managed to escape. The lack of talk also adds to that so the movie is kind of boring to a certain extent. There is not really much to look forward to. However, when the alien did come into play, I easily misjudged who the main character was. I saw Ash dying because of his negativity however I thought Dallas would be the last man standing. He was quite brave and the fact that he went after the alien but there was no blood or a body after he met with the creature, I expected him to suddenly re-appear. That would be a classic situation in a suspense movie when someone we thought was dead suddenly comes back into the story and ends up being the hero. Finally, I believe that the cat, Jones was almost a symbol of death. We do not see the cat till when they start looking for the alien inside the spaceship. When Brett had to chase it down because it escaped, he was the first to get killed by the alien. Around the end, when Ripley has the cat in her arms, Parker and Lambert get killed. Finally, when they enter the shuttle after blowing up the spaceship, the cat gets placed in its little shelter. Then the alien suddenly is in the shuttle too. However, her being the sole survivor left meant that she managed to rid herself of the creature.