We had 90 trick-or-treaters last night - a new record for us! It's been
five years since we moved out of an apartment and into a house and we
still love having kids show up in costume. They came in waves this year
and I once looked out the window to see a mass of 25 kids and their
parents walking across the lawn while
Night of the Living Dead
was playing on the TV. I turned to my wife and said "They're coming to
get you, Barbara!" She ignored me, which is the only reasonable course
of action.
We didn't watch
House of Wax this year, which was a first. It's
been our tradition for at least a decade or more, but neither of us was
into it. Instead we ran a bunch of Universal Monster movies and, as
already mentioned, the original
Night of the Living Dead. It was well past 8 before the hordes dissipated and we could finally sit down to the final film for 31 Days.
I'd brought up the idea of watching
Scream as a sort of bookend
to the start of this month (where I watched a Wes Craven film and then a
Christopher Lee film), but my wife wasn't really interested. I try and
make sure we watch something we can both enjoy, so I brought out a
variety to choose from and her choice was:
Alien
My history with
Alien doesn't actually start with the film
itself, but rather with the novelization by Alan Dean Foster. When I was
a kid I was in the Boy Scouts and once a year we went on something
called a 'Jamboree.' In general these were wretched affairs memorable
only for the number of days it rained and how horrific the latrine was.
It rained so often when we went that even today if it's a miserable,
cold and rainy day I'll say to my wife, "somewhere there are Boy Scouts
camping in this."
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| Actual picture of Boy Scouts camping. |
Anyway, this one particular Jamboree was more of a week-long event at a
lodge or camping resort somewhere in the wilds of Maine. Miraculously it
didn't rain the entire time and even when it did our tents were on
elevated platforms instead of the usual water-filled depressions at the
bottom of a hill. I learned out to fletch an arrow, I remember, and how
to shoot a bow, use a compass and that a grease-covered watermelon is no
prize, no matter what the Eagle Scouts say.
At night I read
Alien.
I distinctly remember the opening paragraphs about seven dreamers and
how they weren't professional dreamers. It was a cool science fiction
story opening about cryo-sleep and the personalities of a spaceship
crew. I read a lot of science fiction back then and that's what I was
hoping for - a good old space opera tale like something by Asimov or
Heinlein. And then I got to the final sentence in that opening chapter:
"Seven dreamers in search of a nightmare."
 |
| Yes, the nightmare is in there. |
It's a short book. I think I read it four or five times that week. And I
laid awake at night a lot of times after I put it away, wondering what
it would be like to be stuck on the Nostromo, trying to get away from
the alien creature - running through maze-like corridors in the dark, in
the cold, in space - knowing there WAS no escape. It was a haunted
house with no way out, because the outside would kill you just as surely
as what was inside.
 |
| Jason! Jason is outside the spaceship! No? |
I loved it, of course.
I wasn't able to see the film itself until many years later. I wasn't
disappointed, though the movie was very different than the one I had
directed in my head. In the time since the film has stealthily
infiltrated my memories and replace those characters and those moments
that I imagined with the images that Ridley Scott created. Except that
one line. Dreamers in search of a nightmare. That's still the first
thing I think of when I think of
Alien.
The Medium
I've owned
Alien several times over the years. For last night's
viewing we watched the recent blu-ray release that contains the
Theatrical version and the 2003 Director's Cut. We ended up watching the
Director's Cut, mostly on a whim (I kind of wanted to watch the
original, but the siren song of additional footage is strong). The
blu-ray is gorgeous and my wife exclaimed many times about how it looks -
despite some very out-of-date tech - like a film that could have come
out this year.
The Movie
There's just not much new I can say about
Alien. It's been
analyzed, studied, reviewed and re-reviewed by hundreds if not thousands
of people with way more qualifications for doing so than I posses. Of
course that's never stopped me before... but I won't go over the plot.
You've seen it - and if you haven't, go out and find a copy and watch it
right now!
The thing that always gets me about
Alien right away is the same
thing that got me about the novelization. It should be a straight-up
sci-fi story - commercial space vehicle Nostromo towing a refinery ship
through the back lanes of space - but it's just so damn creepy! The way
the entire ship is full of shadows, the way the camera creeps through
empty corridors and rooms. It's like the ship is abandoned - or haunted.
This even extends to the awakening of the crew, which - despite the
suddenly bright lighting - is also a little like vampires rising from
their coffins.
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| They were going to put some nice bright lighting in - but budget cuts, you know. |
Vampires in desperate need of coffee.
Whenever you watch a film multiple times it's inevitable that you find
yourself focusing on different aspects. This time around Moe and I were
both struck by how realistic and natural the characters and their
dialogue are. Dan O'bannon's script has something to do with this, of
course, but you can't script things like Dallas' reaction to Kane noting
that the signal location is within "walking distance." Or Lambert's
exasperated response to Ripley's "that's not our system." They all seem
like real people, which, of course, helps ground a story that's
essentially "find space monster, run from space monster."
 |
| Real people... well, mostly. |
I was worried - having seen
Prometheus - that my reaction to the
alien ship would be changed somehow, that it would be substantially less
eerie and mysterious. No worries -
Prometheus didn't inform my viewing this time around at all. (That may be because I haven't re-watched
Prometheus
since it came out and the details are blurry.) The ship is still
enigmatic and dangerous looking. I always wondered - what kind of mind
would create the aesthetics that inform its shape? What kind of
reasoning makes those lines and those halls? The answer was always going
to be disappointing, so I prefer to still wonder - and worry.
 |
| "Remember, if it rolls, run perpendicular." |
I still think this version of the eggs and this version of the
facehugger are the best, the scariest. Although I love the book and knew
what was coming the first time I saw this scene I know I yelled out
loud.
 |
| "These are the weirdest avocados." |
As we were watching the scene in the medical bay after Kane is brought
in, just before they attempt to cut it off and the acid eats through the
floor, my wife opined that the entire
Alien franchise really
depends on people ignoring what Ripley says. Every movie she's in could
have ended - if not happily, then at least with a lot less loss of life -
if everyone simply did exactly what Ripley says, when she says it. I
can't argue with that. Now I want a t-shirt with Sigourney Weaver's face
on it and the legend "WWRD?"
 |
| WWRD? Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. |
The formula of the bulk of the movie - stick a group of people in an
enclosed space with a monster and watch what happens as they're whittled
down - has been done a billion times, of course, but rarely so well.
From the chestburster scene (watch the faces of the actors when Kane's
chest pops, those are real reactions, as they hadn't been told what
exactly was going to happen), through Dallas in the vents to Ripley's
frenzied run to try and stop the self-destruct. That's a master class in
how to build tension and deliver on scares.
 |
| This is what "what the fuck just happened?" looks like. |
Each time I watch this movie some scene ends up standing out - it's
usually different each time, though Kane's descent into the egg field
shows up often. This time around it was Ripley's confrontation with Ash.
Though I never got to see the scene unspoiled, I imagine it must have
been quite a freakout for those who did. For my wife that's the most
terrifying sequence - the person you thought was one of you, on the same
side, turns out to be just as much of a monster as what you're
fighting, if not worse. And despite the lack of blood it's also one of
the most violent segments of the film. (I noted for the first time that,
hilariously, Ash is drinking milk in the scene when Ripley confronts
him about letting Kane on board.)
 |
| And there's that milk again! |
The final sequence still bugs my wife a bit "who the hell would wear
those bottoms" she always says. It's true, but that sequence as a whole
is just brilliant and even knowing how it ends gets me on the edge of my
seat. (And off it when that hand comes out.)
 |
| My wife's right about the bottoms, though - who wears those in space? |
The Bottom Line
Alien is a classic and a fantastic film, no matter how many times
you see it. Consistently in my top five favorite movies of all time.
Not much I can add about it - every angle has been written about by
others - though now that I write that, how about analyzing Ash as a
representative of the Company in the era of Citizen's United?
Corporations are people, after all - or androids, as the case may be. At
least you don't see the aliens screwing each other over for a
percentage.
