The Birth of A Freudian Monster in Space

Rating: 10/10 (10 November 2009)

In 1979 the movie screen was blazoned with a nightmare unimaginable, a group of space pioneers(truckers some say) are heading home on the Nostromo they are suddenly awakened by the ships computer 'Mother' to investigate an SOS on a nearby alien planet, Executive Officer Kane(John Hurt) Captain Dallas(Tim Skeriritt) and Navigator Lambert(Veronica Cartwritght) all go down to the surface of the planet to investigate, leaving Executive Officer Ripley(Sigourney Weaver), Science Officer Ash(Ian Holm) Chief Engineer Parker(Yaphet Kotto) and Engineering Technician Brett(Harry Dean Stanton) on the ship; whilst on the surface Kane is attacked by an unknown species that attached itself to his face, the Captain and Navigator rush back to get him help letting an unknown and dangerous species on board, soon the Executive Officer is dead and the crew is fighting a frightening enemy which they don't understand.
Now in this classic Science Fiction movie is a lot of great effects, along the caliber of Star Wars which was released two years prior as a matter of fact, Star Wars and Alien are considered to be two of the movies that saved Sci-Fi from being a B movie standard forever. What director Ridley Scott basically did was take the idea of the slasher film put it on space ship and run with it. The deranged killer is an alien that has killed one of the members of the crew to be born, and there are plenty of turns along the way leaving you with the distinct impression of a nightmare, as a matter of fact it has so much Freudian imagery and meaning that it has been dissected by many college students and film critics alike. The writers of this movie started out with a low budget comedy in their college days and morphed it into a serious psychological thriller that will never be duplicated, and to this day still disturbs its fan base with its scenes
There have been discussions and actual quotes that point to this movie being what man would consider rape, it has enough phallic imagery along with enough helplessness to be such a film and it does it in striking way, horrifying, I know this film is nothing for children but if they were every one of the kids who saw it would surely be struck with nightmares.
I'm going to talk here about the director's cut which in truth is a nice addition to the DVD release, and is still a great film but really truthfully offers no addition or subtraction to the overall film, you get some exposition shots where there weren't any and you get to see the ideas behind the alien but in truth there are no additions or subtractions to the overall plot, which Ridley Scott himself said he is pleased with the film in its theatrical release and I applaud him for truly showing us this film integrated with never before seen footage, but still to me it will be the theatrical that I will watch the majority of the time.