A Horror Classic

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2016)

This movie predates my childhood, since I was born at a time when horror was sadly beginning to fade into the cliché standards of today's "scary movies." This is the sort of horror movie everyone remembers, and it has stood the test of time like no other movie in the genre (with the exception of, perhaps, Psycho or The Shining) ever has. The phrase 'in space nobody can hear you scream' has never been so effective, and the movie relies on atmosphere to generate this effectiveness. This is a risky decision for any movie developer, since if that atmosphere is not established well enough, then the movie looses all sense of fear and tension. Here, however, this is not the case. The alien is instantly established as a threat - ever since that infamously gory scene in the cafeteria; you all know which one I'm talking about - and this threat, combined with the tight hallways and sense of claustrophobia, is what shapes Alien into the terrifying, chilling movie that is renowned as even more than 25 years later.