The best sci-fi/horror ... ever!

Rating: 9/10 (3 March 2000)

With its many grisly special effects and truly suspenseful moments, Alien is sci-fi/horror at its best. The film is about the crew of a space freighter that, while returning to Earth, receives orders to land on an unexplored planet and investigate a derelict spaceship. While investigating the ship, one of the crew members is infected with a deadly creature that proceeds to burst out of his body and kill off the other crew members one by one. This film is very original and imaginative. It also borrows much from classic 50s science fiction, especially The Thing. It's a very entertaining movie with a good story, even better directing, and one of the most horribly realistic special effects in film history. My favorite scene is when Tom Skerritt shines his flashlight into a darkened corridor only to find the creature inches away from his face. That is the only scene in my history of movie-watching that was both scary and unpredictable enough to make me leap out of my seat and scream. Alien is a truly engaging (and terrifying) edge-of-your-seat thriller that never once lets you stop to take a breath.