Review: Alien (1979)
Name me a more classic horror film, I'll wait. Ridley Scott's Alien is seriously hard to beat. I hate to admit that I was in my twenties before I dared to watch it for the first time—I'm still in my twenties, of course, but I've seen it enough times in the last few years that hopefully I've begun to make up for my earlier failing.It's honestly hard to find much to critique about Alien, other than the obvious—the gender and racial diversity of the cast is pretty dismal (though, sadly, standard for the '70s), and what was up with all that goo that came spurting out of Ash when they destroyed him? Did Ridley Scott really think that androids of the future were going to be stuffed with cooked spaghetti and Elmer's glue?? I wish I knew. Inexplicable as such faults may be, it has still aged remarkably well for a film celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.
So the question becomes, what is it about this film that worked so well? Why does it still thrill me even the third, fourth, or fifth time I've seen it? How have the puppets and the rudimentary effects managed to withstand the test of time and the scrutiny of a CGI-jaded crowd?
Easy: Scott doesn't make us afraid because of what we do see, but because of what we don't. There's a reason that the scene with Ash's spaghetti guts is one of the few that hasn't aged well; it relies on the kind of gross-out horror that requires you to believe that what you're seeing is really something so terrible. If you can't believe it, it's not scary. That Xenomorph on the other hand... A glimpse of teeth here, a trickle of saliva there—and a flash of the creature just before it grabs you! Er, I mean, grabs a character. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that thing seize Dallas in the air duct, but it sets my heart pounding every time.
Alien still rings true because it plays not just on our fears of the gross or the disfigured or the sharp-toothed, but on our much deeper fears of darkness and the unknown. The film builds incredible tension not because we see the Xenomorph chasing down our brave protagonists, but precisely because we don't see it—not until it's right on top of them. And that last point is important, because I doubt the film would have been as effective either if we hadn't anything of the Xenomorph but a shadow. It's all about balance.
One of the best parts of the film for me is actually one I didn't notice until this time around, and it's an area I think Alien succeeds where many other monster- or alien-horror films fail. It's this: Alien doesn't shy away from the argument that the humans may not actually be the protagonists of the film. Think about it. They interfered with an unknown species that had no particularly malicious intent for them other than as hosts for its natural (though admittedly parasitic) reproductive cycle. Once aboard the Nostromo, the Facehugger and the Chestburster only concern themselves with their host; the Xenomorph hides in the air ducts until the humans come after it with a flamethrower. Even in the end, it stows itself away on Ripley's escape pod rather than attacking her outright, arguably concerned merely with its own survival. Time after time, it's the humans who choose to mount the offensive.
Obviously I'm not here to defend Xenomorphs (they do find some pretty horrible ways to kill), but I do find the plot to be illustrative of a trope that tends to frustrate me about the alien-horror genre. Just as with many terrestrial "unknowns," a perceived threat to humans serves as justification for eradication—not just of Xenomorphs, but of wolves and sharks as well (not to mention other human beings). So you can imagine my delight when I realized that Alien is keenly aware of this human weakness—that gross scene with Ash wasn't meant just to use up the camera crew's extra lunch noodles, but to illustrate the human folly in attempting to capture and exploit a non-human intelligence. The crew of the Nostromo may not have loved being unwittingly party to the plot, but I can tell you I slept easier knowing that the moral of this beloved classic was rather "hubris = humanity's downfall" than "the unknown = evil."
All in all, a 10/10 horror film. If you're in your 20's and haven't dared see it—or 30's or 40's or 60's—it's never to late to try.
Citations: Alien. Directed by Ridley Scott. 20th Century Fox, 1979.
[Has anyone else noticed how close the name Ripley is to Ridley? Do we imagine Mr. Scott fancied himself the protagonist of his own film? Just an observation.]
Bahaha cooked spaghetti and Elmer's glue I love it, I thought it looked like curdled milk. I wonder what they actually used to make that effect.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even think to comment on the diversity in my post, I guess you are right. I just glossed over that because of the 70's, but it really is lacking in that department.
I agree that alien plays upon fears of darkness and the unknown. It's a fear ingrained in every human being. But there's that again, it's about humans. And you made a point I never considered, that the xenomorph is the main character. I commented on it just doing what it can to further it's race, but I didn't go farther like you did. It's eggs were attacked, it was brought onto the ship, the alien was hiding until provoked. That really touches on this weeks question of what make an alien a monster, and maybe in this instance the humans are the monstrous aliens. This reminds me of a post I once saw about describing humans as crazy aliens from a different POV. I'll try to find it.
POST:
ReplyDeleteHumans are apex predators. We’re unbreakable and relentless and legion and lethal. Nothing gets to us- except us.
It’s the stupidest little things that can stop up a human.
Many aliens have theorized about this. Perhaps with no natural enemies, the species tried to threaten them with themselves in a desperate search for some kind of challenge. Maybe it’s cosmic karma for being nigh unstoppable. Maybe they had transcended so much that the nuances of life were tiny and incomprehensible to them. Maybe it’s natural selection trying to thin the herd.
Whichever the cause, it’s a strange combination of disturbing and amusing to see a human be defeated by itself. It’s a little alarming to see the most resilient and powerful species in the universe be completely shut down with things that pale in comparison to their normal challenges.
Seeing a human function almost completely fully with several broken bones… but absolutely crippled and reduced to using one arm when faced with a large hangnail.
More seriously, humans do have a number of advantages even among Terrestrial life. Our endurance, shock resistance, and ability to recover from injury is absurdly high compared to almost any other animal. We often use the phrase “healthy as a horse” to connote heartiness - but compared to a human, a horse is as fragile as spun glass. There’s mounting evidence that our primitive ancestors would hunt large prey simply by following it at a walking pace, without sleep or rest, until it died of exhaustion; it’s called pursuit predation. Basically, we’re the Terminator.
(The only other animal that can sort of keep up with us? Dogs. That’s why we use them for hunting. And even then, it’s only “sort of”.)
Now extrapolate that to a galaxy in which most sapient life did not evolve from hyper-specialised pursuit predators:
It’s funny how science fiction universes so often treat humans as a boring, default everyman species or even the weakest and dumbest.
I want to see a sci-fi universe where we’re actually considered one of the more hideous and terrifying species.
Our strength and speed is nothing to write home about, but we don’t need to overpower or outrun you. We just need to outlast you - and by any other species’ standards, we just plain don’t get tired.
Where a simple broken leg will cause most species to go into shock and die, we can recover from virtually any injury that’s not immediately fatal. Even traumatic dismemberment isn’t necessarily a career-ending injury for a human.
We heal from injuries with extreme rapidity, recovering in weeks from wounds that would take others months or years to heal. The results aren’t pretty - humans have hyperactive scar tissue, among our other survival-oriented traits - but they’re highly functional.
Speaking of scarring, look at our medical science. We developed surgery centuries before developing even the most rudimentary anesthetics or life support. In extermis, humans have been known to perform surgery on themselves - and survive. Thanks to our extreme heartiness, we regard as routine medical procedures what most other species would regard as inventive forms of murder. We even perform radical surgery on ourselves for purely cosmetic reasons.
In essence, we’d be Space Orcs.
OMG this is so interesting, thank you for sharing! I wasn't even thinking of it like that, but it's such a good point that humans are actually an extremely capable and badass species. I really liked that Alien seemed pretty self-aware of that fact, at least to the extent it recognized that no one would have died if they hadn't sent people out to bother the alien in the first place. I think it's so interesting to reframe a lot of stories from that perspective (especially monster-hunting quests), since when you think of it that way, suddenly it seems pretty bloodthirsty and bizarre that a band of humans would go out of their way to find a dragon to murder (especially if the dragon hadn't done anything worse than eat a few sheep!).
DeleteActually, I did notice the similarity in names. I thought they were the same name though, until you pointed it out. When I saw "Ridley", I was thinking that was the same name as Weaver's character, and every time I heard "Riple", I thought it was the director getting his name in the film. I'm glad you pointed out that they aren't the same!
ReplyDeleteTruly an all-time classic movie, and I think you hit on the major reason why: not showing the alien enough to steal away its frightfulness. I think that translates to writing too. Description is great, but nothing trumps what a readers will fill in blanks with in their own imaginations. You readers enough of an idea of what the alien is like, and then let them bring it to life.
I just had a conversation with someone today about a scene I wrote in a novel I wrote before this program. Her son, about 9 years old, is getting into drawing, and apparently he's pretty good. She told him about this scene I had where a duergar (evil gray dwarf) bit the head off of a live mouse for lunch, in front of the protagonist. I described the bite. She told it to her son so he could draw it. But he wanted details. Was the dwarf wearing armor? Did he have hair on his arms and hands, etc. So she asked me to send him more info on the scene. I told her to tell him to draw it as he sees it in his own mind, just based on what I had in the scene, which was only one or two paragraphs. It'll be interesting to see what it looks like (if he draws it!). But this is one of those less-is-more-things, I think. I described the actual biting off of the head, blood dripping down his chin. But beyond that, there's room for the reader to visualize it better than anything I think I could do.
I was actually talking to one of my coworkers who was a film major, and he said that when they reviewed "Alien," because whether you like this movie or not it is well done, they talked a lot about the movie playing on sexual themes. So, I don't know if I really agree with all this, but he said they discussed how the face huggers are dealing with the fear of rape for both men and women, because the face hugger's underbelly anatomy is similar to women's genitalia, and the thing it sticks down the throat is like male genitalia. He had a few other points, but one of them was about Ash's behavior when she finds out he isn't human. One of the things he does is try to choke Ripley with the rolled up magazine down her throat just like the face huggers, and then she is exploded on with the white curdled blood. I think his class discussion was stretching the intention, but I can definitely get on board with the face hugger design being inspired by a fear of oral rape. I personally like the white blood in the sense that it is just very strange to see. I think most representations of blood are shows as blue or even green.
ReplyDelete