Perfect Sci-Fi Horror

Rating: 8/10 (16 September 2014)

This is a fantastic Sci-Fi horror. It ticks every box. The dark, Gothic horror and suspense builds wonderfully. The alien is genuinely frightening and biologically convincing, when it could easily have looked absurd. The plot is simple, perfectly so. The cast are great - particularly Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm.
The real mark of genius, though, is the way the characters get picked off one - by one - by one. It keeps you guessing, and right to the death it's not obvious who will be the last survivor, or even if there will be a last survivor.
Downsides? The special effects are, unsurprisingly, ageing. Mostly this is covered up by the fact that we're deliberately only given brief glimpses of the alien. But occasionally the facade slips. For example, there's a scene right at the end where the alien is on the outside of a space-craft and looks like it's being carried around on a piece of string.
But special effects will always age and that can be forgiven. It doesn't detract from a movie that fully achieves what it sets out do - keep you enthralled and on the edge of your seat the whole way through.