The archetype of horror

Rating: 10/10 (4 September 2006)

I first saw alien when it reached France around 1980. I remember it was the firs movie displayed in Dolby surround in my little childhood town. I was underage and very proud of having sneaked my way unnoticed out of the queue at the theater entrance. I would regret this bitterly since my nights would be populated with nightmares from this movie for the few next months! We had no VHS copy at home so I had to wait 5 or 6 years to get a chance to view the movie again in Paris. I went alone and came up late, so I sat in the corner of a huge screen at the front row, seeing more the audience than part of a badly distorted picture. Despite all this, even though I had promised myself not to wink at any moment, I could not help but squeeze my eyes shut in key scenes like when the thing plops out of the egg or when the cat shrieks in terror.
This is to say I can't really give an objective review of the first movie that really scared me. However, and since I occasionally talked about a movie that had impressed me so much, a friend once made a remark about alien I was at first unable to acknowledge. After a dozen years or so I take this opportunity to give her credit and elaborate on her theory.
On the surface you get a lot of brilliant innovations (especially back in 1979), like "realistic" casual sci-fi universe, with basic, unglamorous workers as heroes. Something like that had never been shown back in 79 as far as I can tell. Add to this the brilliant special effects, gorgeous sets and costumes, (kind of) realistic looking computers and you already have enough eye candy to fill your average sci-fi movie.
But what really makes alien an exceptionally efficient movie is the simplicity of its underlying scheme, made even more potent by all the distractions that prevent us to get to the real point of the plot.
The creature is a part of us. It is forced into us while we sleep, then forgotten, and when it gets out of us it tears us apart. It knows us better than we know ourselves. Each time we think of a way of getting rid of it, it adapts and defeats our efforts easily. And of course the last thing we want is to see it. We'd rather blow 20 million tons of spacecraft than having to cohabit with it.
What better symbol for the basic mechanism of the basic neurosis within each of us? The symbol of our animal part, so well described by Ash ("I admire its purity [..] not hindered by ethics or remorse"), an incarnation of our own destructive tendencies we better die trying to suppress than acknowledge ever.
And what about "mom", the almighty computer? Is it not a perfect symbol for the rational part of our personality, the one forcing the cohabitation on us even if it means the collapse and annihilation of our individuality?
Honestly, being only an occasional watcher of the horror genre, I could not say how many movies came this close of illustrating (on a symbolic level of course) such strong and basic mechanisms. None in the major ones of the last 2 or 3 decades, I would say. But about the originality of the plot, of course it's possible to trace back similarities not only in 1950's B movies, but also in basic universal myths (like for instance the labyrinth and the minotaur, to name but one).
This is precisely the strength of the movie to treat us with a very plain and simple archetypal scheme, but cleverly disguise it so that we have the thrilling pleasure of feeling its full force without quite recognizing what we face.
All this may sound a bit far-fetched, but I think the good looks of the movie and the masterly direction are not enough to explain its success after more than 25 years.
Judging from the cynical reviews younger watchers have recently made, I would say the massive denial of the truly unsettling quality of this movies fuels this theory even more :).
This masterpiece deserves a 10/10, without the slightest hesitation.