I think I should go back and change the title to remove the ‘a’ and replace it with ‘The’. Released in 1979 which is close enough for me to include it in my 80’s movie collection. No? Oh OK. My number 6 movie is ‘Alien’ which was written by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett while Dan had the screenplay credit all to himself. Produced by Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill. Costing $11m to make this was directed by the now legendary Ridley Scott and the music was by Jerry Goldsmith. Once made and released it went on to make $106.3m which must be seen as a huge success for its time. The critic’s agree with IMDb scoring an 8.4 out of 10 and Rotten Tomatoes being spot on with me giving it a score of 98%. Before I go on to tell you have fantastic this movie is let me share the plot with you.
A commercial spaceship called the Nostromo is returning to Earth towing a vast amount of crude materials. Onboard there is a crew of seven members and just to be anal they are – Arthur Dallas – Captain and commanding officer, Gilbert Kane, Executive Officer, and 2nd in command. Ellen Ripley – Warrant Officer and 3rd in command, Joan Lambert – Navigation Officer, Ash – Science Officer, Dennis Parker – Chief Engineer, and Samuel Brett – Engineering Technician oh and the eighth member of the crew is Jones the Cat. Maybe Jonesy if you prefer. They are all in stasis sleeping as they head to earth when they are awakened by the ship who has detected a signal. Believing it to be a distress signal they wake up and Dallas, Kane, and Lambert head down to a planets surface to see if they can help. Meanwhile Ripley has deciphered some of the message and believes it’s a warning not a distress signal. She tells the three to return but they have just found a chamber full of what appears to be eggs. One of the eggs open just as Kane investigates it, a creature leaps out through his space helmet and onto his face. The thing has attached itself to his face. Due to quarantine restrictions Ripley stops the three from re-entering the ship. Science office Ash releases the airlock and lets them in. Taking him into medical centre Ash does all he can to remove the Alien from his face but cannot do so without killing Kane in the process. Later the thing just drops off and they believe he is fine. What has happened is it had laid an embryo inside and its growing and getting bigger. Big enough to go out and set itself up on its own. Now on a spaceship millions of miles from earth there is a battle of survival between a single Alien and a crew of spaceship just doing a job and not geared up for a fight.
One of my favourite types of movies is suspense and this has it in bundles. There is so much here that you could fill another 2 or 3 films with it. This is done expertly and draws you into the feeling of desperation as they crew cobble together weapons from nothing. Some netting and a cattle prod compared to this completely unknown foe that is growing bigger and stalking the ship. This is eery to say the least, for the characters they know this ship they know the surrounding and now there is something in the shadows that can kill them. Not knowing what it is, how dangerous it is, what it’s become, what it wants, what can hurt it, and no help coming or nearby. They are in the brown sticky stuff that’s for sure. This is a great atmospheric spooky sci-fi story which spawned at least 8 following films maybe more as I cannot be asked to check the details. This creature that was introduced for the first time in this movie went on to spawned films, cartoons, games, copied umpteen times and many other items that I’ve brought into as well. This is a battle of wills between the crew and the alien and a true battle of survival where the only way to survive is to kill the other. What a battle is about to happen, if there is somehow a way you’ve missed this movie. Then you are in for a treat and you are about to be spooked from the shadows this thing could be anywhere. Enjoy! and I am just little bit jealous not to have the feeling of fear when you watch this for the first time.
Next up is another horror comedy and one from way back in the 80’s of course!!
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