REVIEW #93 Alien (1979)

Alien is a Sci-Fi horror directed by Ridley Scott and follows the crew on a spacecraft called Nostromo as they intercept a distress call from a planet. Things soon take a turn for the worse as they discover an alien that terrorises the ship and hunts everyone on board.

CAST & THE ACTING 

For a lot of this film there isn’t really a lead actor because it follows the crew equally, showing us who each of these characters are. However Sigourney Weaver, who plays Ellen Ripley, ends up being the main character and she delivers a fantastic performance! She increases the intensity of the film and that keeps you on the edge of your seat with your heart racing. It was probably one of the best performances I’ve seen from an actress in a film of this genre. Ian Holm played Ash the science officer on board and the undercover artificial intelligence. He done well to create suspicion around his character, almost switching from very real and human like with little behavioural signals that got me questioning his character. This helped build the tension up until the point where he was revealed to be an AI robot. The rest of the crew is made up of John Hurt as Kane, Veronica Cartwright as Lambert, Tom Skerrit as Dallas, Yaphet Kotto as Parker and finally Harry Dean Stanton as Brett. Everyone performed well, they portrayed genuine fear really convincingly and that transfers to the audience, especially in the final hour where it got so tense. 

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

I think the storyline is really unique, I can understand why it is such a loved film and it must have blew the minds of audiences when they were watching this in the cinemas in 1979. The biggest compliment to the films plot is just how many other films have tried to replicate something similar since it’s release. What I enjoyed was the fact we witnessed where this alien come from, we got to see how it developed and we finally watched how dangerous it become. This meant that I wasn’t left with many questions and I could solely focus on the events that followed. I do think that was helped by the fact I had watched Prometheus before watching this film. Ridley Scott ensured all the characters in Alien were given enough screen time, originally sharing that role of the ‘main character’, this was effective because it allows the audience to connect with each of those characters, making the deaths more shocking and emotional. The pacing improved as the film went on with the final hour being so fast paced that it had you on the edge of your seat the whole time. Every decision they had to make had such high stakes and that builds tension and increases the intensity. One criticism I do have is there are some really silly decisions made by some of the characters, this happens in a lot of films so I wasn’t surprised but I had to highlight it. For example when the parasite detaches from Kane they all just go in the room search for it without any protection… But a really gripping plot nonetheless!

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

The models used to create the spaceship scenes were very similar to that of Star Wars and that’s a technique I really like. It looks a lot more realistic compared to awful CGI, yes the movements are a little rigid but it still looks good. The setting inside Nostromo also looked convincing and I can imagine how good that looked to an audience in 1979! The stand out cinematography in the film for me though was the final 30 minutes, the use of lighting, sound and smoke to create such frantic, heart racing scenes was absolutely fantastic. It contributed to the high stakes nature of the film and really set the pace for the conclusion of the film. There is also the alien itself, which also looked great and it looked realistic too. I noticed that most of the scenes where we see it’s fully grown are in darker settings, this does a better job at hiding any the fact it’s a model and makes it more convincing for audiences. I was really impressed by the cinematography and special effects in Alien.

OVERALL (9/10)

After watching Predator and feeling very unimpressed I assumed I would have a similar feeling to this film. However I absolutely loved Alien and I was so surprised by how much it impressed me! The acting was great and a real stand out performance from Sigourney Weaver got me so invested in the character. The plot was exciting and kept me on the edge of my seat for most of its duration. Not only that, it also provided a lot of context for the alien itself which was nice because it left me with fewer questions. I was really impressed by the cinematography and special effects, for a film released in 1979 it looked so realistic and that’s why I am a fan of the old films that use models for their scenes instead of rubbish CGI. I am late to watching Alien though, I only remember seeing parts of it years ago but now I have watched it properly I understand why it’s considered a classic! Definitely watch it if you haven’t already.