Alien (1979) – A transport crew is bringing mineral ore to Earth when they are awoken from cryo-sleep by a distress call. They discover an alien life form that makes the rest of their trip home a fight for their lives. Directed by Ridley Scott, starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto.
This movie is special to me for a variety of reasons. It’s one of the all time great science fiction films, it’s an all time great horror film and it’s the move where I fell for Sigourney Weaver. I will go a couple years between viewings and find myself thinking that it can’t really be as good as I remember, right? Then I watch it and yes, it’s just as good as I remember.
Scott was a little known director at the time but would immediately follow this with “Blade Runner”. You could retire on a career of just those two movies. He brings an intense claustrophobia to this movie as the characters are trapped for almost the entire movie on board the spaceship “Nostromo”. The pacing is terrific, the performances are outstanding and the movie remains terrifying with actually a minimum of blood and gore.
This was the break out role for Weaver too. She pulls off an ending that is simultaneously thrilling, scary and sexy all at the same time. “Alien” spawned a series of sequels that are, by and large, better than most sequels. Oh yes, it also had the greatest movie tag line of all time in my opinion.
In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream.
Why I Like It – It’s the complete package – writing, directing, acting, visuals.
Why You Will Like It – Because it’s fast paced, plenty of action, very scary when it wants to be.
Not bad for a movie that was repeatedly turned down and initially green lighted with a small budget.
Rated R for Sci-fi violence, gore and language.
It made roughly $200,000,000 worldwide on a budget of $11,000,000. It was the #6 grossing movie of the year.
Rating – ***** Highest Recommendation
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