Movie Review: Alien

If you are not familiar with the term claustrophobia, you soon will be!

Alien, the 1979 science fiction masterpiece by, then soon-to-be-a-legend director, Ridley Scott, bases his chilling elements on two factors:

Atmosphere and music.

Scott proves us that these two, when powerfully and effectively combined, can truly turn your average the-last-one-standing-survives story into a jumpy 117 minutes.

We are hinted by what awaits us the minute the movie starts and we are introduced to Jerry Goldsmith's minimalistic score as a lonely spacecraft silently navigates towards us. By avoiding an orchestral effulgence and going for an eerie, almost disturbing cue that relies on strings, the composer never dominates the audience and simply contributes to the vastness and nothingness of the space setting. Dead silence reigns over this realm and we are in the middle of God-knows where. Hence, "no one can hear [us] scream". This oblivion is conveyed through the overslowly emerging title, prolonged shots of the space and the drifting vehicle, the literally undergoing score and perspective shots of the long, dark and seemingly never-ending tunnels of the spacecraft until we reach the crew.

The atmosphere begins to weigh on our shoulders.

The crew, unlike your all-busy and ready-to-face-the-next-challenge USS Enterprise staff, is as silent as the space at first since they are all asleep but that state will be taken care of, soon. Scott makes sure that he keeps his audience waiting and he takes his time like a girl getting ready for that big night. While moving around in the tunnels and approaching the sleeping units wherein the crew lies in stasis, it feels as if "we" are the alien, himself, intruding the spaceship, curious and looking for a life form.

Once the crew is awakened by Mother, which is the artificial intelligence that runs the ship, Scott begins to weave his story like a spider around the audience who, now slouching by the weight of the bleak atmosphere atop them, have already joined the crew of USCSS Nostromo amidst "a situation". Mother was programmed to return them back to life once they approached Earth but having received an S.O.S. signal, she woke them up in the middle of somewhere apparently so far away from home.

Following the signal to a nearby planet, we are once again dominated by the atmosphere. The landing group wears helmets with lights attached on top of them while they first try to make their way within a blustering storm and then a somber carcass of a spaceship. Think of flashlights moving up and down in a dark tunnel. A classic scene that never fails its effect.

Down a level (just like playing a classic FRP; the lower in a dungeon you get, the more dangerous the creatures become) and the group discovers countless egg-like forms. Soon, we are "faced with" (pun intended) what is known as one of the most iconic creatures of horror/sci-fi literature. The "facehugger" makes its entrance so quickly that we don't even realize whatever happened or what the attacker looks like until the group begins to return to the ship and inform those aboard that one of them was attacked by a creature that spurted out of an egg and attached itself to their companion's face.

At this point, I'd like you, dear reader, to raise one of your hands, part your fingers as if you're about to grab something and cover your face with your hand as if you are going to strangle yourself. This is the main idea behind the facehugger concept; to feel that something horrible is being done to your body against your will.

You are being nested!

Scott touches a sore spot in human psychology by emphasizing the helplessness within an atmosphere as strangling as the facehugger itself. We are being victimized and we are in the middle of nowhere. We don't know what is going on and what is this thing on our buddy's face, anyway?

Enter the genius of one of the most eccentric artists of our times who can only be as complex, out-of-this-world and art nouveau as the fabled Antoni Gaudi, namely, H. R. Giger. Giger's Alien never really reveals himself (until the finale) and we only see bits and pieces of this stylistic nightmare. A hunt begins in the long, dark corridors of Nostromo with an even darker thing as the hunter.

The air-shaft chase is literally breath taking with its eerie silence, narrow spaces, general mindset of going after something vicious in the dark and the only thing that you can rely on is your friend's voice in your ears that gives you directions. Other than that you have no idea where to go, which turn to take and what might await you behind it. The flame thrower in your hand seems to be a weapon to rely on but the flickering flame makes the shadows keep moving and changing constantly around you. Shadows that might host something deadly among them.

The Alien is fast, it can be anywhere and this is one cargo ship after all. How far can you run? How long can a corridor be?

Until the very end of the movie, this is what the audience is exposed to with little to no music and gloomy atmosphere. Scott pulls this science-fiction masterpiece together with great skill while playing with basic human fears here and there to enhance its delicacy.

And once the movie is over, you can't help but wonder:

Are you really alone in the room?