Alien

In a nutshell… The Nostromo answers an SOS call from an alien source, set down on a planet, one of their crew ends up with a crab on his face which lays an egg in his stomach which then hatches out a nasty little alien which not only kills all but one of the crew but the gets killed by the last remaining crew member. It also has a nice little subplot where the android on board wants to keep the alien to take home, not as a pet, and the crew decide this is a bad idea but the android doesn’t agree.

So there you have the story in a nutshell without spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

But what about the film itself?

Lets take any movie with a psychopathic killer and seven or eight teenagers locked inside a house. Where on earth could the killer be? Now, set all that on a space ship (with no exit) with an adult cast and a monster who is the psychopathic killer.

But it’s more than that. It’s a classic. Directed by Ridley Scott the plot is simplistic but so well done it deserves to sit in the annuls of film making history with all the other classics. It is Scott’s skill and talent at directing that makes this movie seem like nothing else that has come before it. With the sound effects adding to the suspense as the camera turns corners looking for an alien we know exists but we’ve not seen. In fact it’s not until the very end that we actually see the alien and even then we see very little of it which in my opinion just adds to the suspense.

John Hurt as Kane plays his role in spectacular fashion and its tribute to see his death scene mimicked in so many other films. Sigourney Weaver plays her role as Ellen Ripley fantastically and although she never won she certainly deserved her BAFTA nomination. It’s a shame that it only won one Oscar, although it was for Visual Effects that, obviously, it owned! (That year was the Kramer Vs Kramer and Norma Rae year so it’s hardly surprising Alien didn’t win.) Veronica Cartwright (stay away from the cherries!) and Scott won a Saturn through in the same year for Best Supporting Actress and Best Director (respectively) so it does kind make up for losing out to Hoffman, Field and the clan. Add Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton and Ian Holm to the cast and you’ve got a classic horror masterpiece that shouldn’t be missed.