Alien
by Robbo
Posted on 24 April 2021
Rating -
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O’Bannon and stars Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto.
Alien follows the seven member crew of the commercial space tug Nostromo, Captain Dallas (Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (Hurt), Warrant Officer Ripley (Weaver), Navigator Lambert (Cartwright), Science Officer Ash (Holm), and two engineers, Parker (Kotto) and Brett (Dean Stanton) who are returning to Earth in stasis.
The ship’s computer, Mother detects a distress signal and per company policy awakens the crew to investigate so they send out a team of Dallas, Kane, and Lambert who discover a derelict alien space ship.
Inside the ship they discover a large chamber full of large egg-like objects and when Kane touches one, a creature springs out, breaks through his helmet and attaches itself to his face so Dallas and Lambert have to carry the unconscious Kane back to the Nostromo.
As acting senior officer, Ripley refuses to let them aboard, but Ash overrides her decision and lets them inside.
Ash attempts to remove the creature from Kane’s face, but stops when he discovers that its blood is an extremely corrosive acid. It later detaches of its own accord and is found dead.
Kane awakens with some memory loss, but seems to be otherwise unharmed but during a final crew meal before returning to stasis, he suddenly chokes and convulses and a small alien creature bursts from Kane’s chest, killing him, and escapes into the ship.
The rest of the film has the crew hunting the alien creature, attempting to capture it but the creature grows at an accelerated rate and begins killing the crew one by one.
I don’t want to add any spoilers but there are many twists and turn along the way.
Alien is an extremely good film and kick started the franchise.
The film starts off at a fairly slow pace but when the Alien appears it really zips along.
The film contains a common theme, being trapped in an enclosed space with an unstoppable leviathan hell bent on killing anything in it’s way with the Nostromo providing many dark corners for the creature to hide and spring from, with many shocks along the way.
The set design is amazing, the Alien character design is ‘out of this world’ and as you would expect from a Ridley Scott film, the cinematography is excellent, perfectly capturing the claustrophobia.
This is definitely a film I would recommend you watch before you die.
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