Alien

In preparation for Prometheus, I gave Alien (1979) a long-overdue rewatch. I mostly remember this movie featuring in an especially annoying film class: we spent nearly two hours debating whether the two-minute scene of Sigourney Weaver in her undies undermined her toughness by defining her as a sex object. Lord deliver us from feminist critics!

Before Ridley Scott became a wildly overpraised hack he at least showed some creative thought and visual dynamism. In its striking visuals, set design and creepy creatures, Alien certainly delivers. Too bad about the story, which segues from eerie stage-setting into Ten Little Indians cliches.

The space freighter Nostromo gets assigned to answer a distress signal on an unknown planet. While exploring, crew member Kane (John Hurt) gets attacked by a strange being. Against the wishes of Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Captain Dallas (Tom Skeritt) takes Kane onboard, but he and Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) are baffled by the creature. Kane seems to recover, but rudely interrupts dinner when a further-grown alien bursts out his chest. The full-grown creature gradually wipes out the crew, with Ripley discovering that their employers consider the crew expendable.

Alien starts on a perfect note. The elaborate sets seem like a grungier version of 2001's endless corridors, adorned by elaborate-yet-plausible technology, its crew not super-smart astronauts but working class spacemen. The gang's early banter has the right naturalist touch, and the Nostromo's descent onto the foggy alien world is appropriately chilling (helped oh-so-much by Jerry Goldsmith's low-key music). These sequences work best, with an interesting atmosphere, low-key yet disturbing, somehow fusing mundanity with futuristic awe.

Then there's the alien, one of the nastiest creatures in all science-fiction. Working with surrealist H.R. Giger, Scott crafts a frightful beast, both a Freudian nightmare and an unstoppable monster. The creature undergoes interesting evolutions, from the octopoid face huggers to the monstrous xenomorph, represented variously by miniatures, models and costumed man. The alien's appearance, with its bulbous head, rubbery body, crustacean appendanges and mouth-within-a-mouth, makes him a uniquely scary antagonist.

Critics make much of Scott's heavy sexual imagery, which in fact becomes obvious and overwrought. The rape metaphor is chilling, with the crew becoming unwilling broodmares for an alien race. The unsettling alien designs add to the disquiet, as does Kane's "impregnation" and Dallas's fate. But the constant genital analogues eventually grow tedious, reaching a low point when Ash rams a porn magazine down Ripley's throat. Subtle Alien is not.

Alien is a haunted house flick at heart, phallic symbols or no. Halfway through, Scott begins the inevitable process of whitling down his cast. Characters crawl down air vents and wander into dark rooms alone, begging to become alien chow. Harry Dean Stanton's character wins the booby prize, chasing a cat all over the ship, through multiple rooms, until the creature finally finds him. The dramatics aren't much smarter than slasher movies where the victim, being chased by a killer, locks herself inside the house. For a B movie thriller this is fine; for an allegedly cerebral sci-fi film it's cheap.

Sigourney Weaver already shows the no-nonsense toughness which made Ripley an enduring heroine. Yaphett Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton provide a hilarious doubles-act as disgruntled engineers. Ian Holm makes an unsettling presence, with ever-so-subtle hints pointing to his big reveal. John Hurt (A Man for All Seasons) eclipses his entire career with the most gruesome movie death ever. Wooden Tom Skeritt and annoying Veronica Cartwright (The Children's Hour) make up the negative side of the ledger.

Alien is a mixed bag. For all its impressive visuals, it's ultimately formulaic. No matter the lavish sets or dick-headed aliens, it's still about a monster jumping out to say boo.