Creating a Sci-Fi/Horror hybrid that still resonates

Rating: 9/10 (21 April 2007)

From Horror movie/Science Fiction film encyclopedias and books on film theory I've read,whenever the story on Ridley Scott's Alien is brought up,there is some mention on the way the show was received when it was first released in the late Spring,early Summer of 1979,was something akin to a truly jarring discovery. And,indeed,looking back on it now,how WOULDN'T a movie set in outer space that involves the following elements: a bleak,non-descript future,seven characters who are neither scientists nor space heroes/fighters and a sleek,nightmarish looking creature with awesome and unearthly traits(i.e. acid for blood,parasitic reproduction,an exponential growth rate among them),be a shock to audiences who were primarily used to more conventional forms of alien life(examples:The Day the Earth Stood Still,2001:A Space Odyssey,George Pal's War of the Worlds,Star Wars,Star Trek)or the future for that matter(again with Star Trek or 2001). Even in Howard HAwks' The Thing(remember,this is 1979,three years before John CArpenter envisioned the same movie),the killer creature seemed to take on a familiar face,even it was similarly lacking in mercy or reasoning as the creature in this movie. Approaching thirty years after its release,Alien still inspires imagery that is as wild and fantastic as it is horrific and sickening.
You're probably familiar with the story by now: The Nostromo(which is something akin to an interstellar cargo/trucking ship)is signaled to a barely charted and presumably unsettled planet in the dark reaches of the galaxy. The crew of seven with the aid of an overhead computer named "Mother" investigate.When one of the members of the exploration group,is attacked by a small indescribable alien creature on the planet's surface,he inadvertently brings aboard an unknown and highly deadly insect-like life-form that picks off each member of the defenseless crew aboard their ship after they depart the planet. Three of the crew,Ripley(Sigourney Weaver,in really her first major role and what a role it was!),PArker(Yaphet Kotto)and Lambert(Veronica Cartwright) discover that this stowaway may be more than a mere incidental pick-up,it becomes as much a battle for individual survival as it is trying to desperately rid themselves of the unwanted visitor.
Ridley Scott has since crafted quite the compendium of films,ranging in scope and material,from the awesome sense of machinery and the future in such pictures as this one and Blade Runer,to sometimes much more sublime,yet awesome imagery like Thelma and Louise or Someone to Watch Over Me(or,for that matter,awesome,Sci-fi-like imagery and epic power like Gladiator),but it was this movie that put him on the map. Using a fairly unknown cast at the time(Tom Skerritt is the closest to an "established" star at the time,even though Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto were well-regarded character actors before and after this movie),and an ambitious script by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Schusett,Scott is able to create something that,like the creature itself,laid an egg in movie-viewing psyches and hatched something awesome. Spawning(no pun intended)three(not counting Alien vs.Predator)sequels so far,this movie has created quite the fertile storyline for strings of graphic novels and fanfics. My personal experience with it was watching something out of anxious curiosity:I finally watched it as a much older person(I was only seven when this show was released,and this is SO NOT a movie for the kiddies!)and it was tough for me to sit still through much of it,even KNOWING much of what was coming from reading synapses and hearing other people's stories of seeing it. Perhaps not a must of movie viewing,but a VERY effective movie-viewing experience!