Dear readers, what would my career as a cinephile and film writer be without occasional hesitant admissions towards terribly embarrassing cinematic blind-spots? It would be almost non-existent, and I really do have quite a confession to make today – up until tonight, I had never seen a single film in the Alien franchise, and while I know that is absolutely shocking and revolting, it is something that I made sure that I rectified as soon as I got the opportunity to do so. Naturally, the best place to start is right at the beginning, and let me tell you, my dearest and most cherished readers, I have never screamed so much in my life, and you can take it from me when I say that Alien is a damn fine film and one that I am still trying to recover from in some way.

I could make a myriad of jokes about Alien, not because its a bad film, but because it is such a notable and iconic film, absolutely nothing I could possibly say could make any difference. Its like writing about the significance of death in Hamlet, a topic on which so much has and will continue to be written. Yet, I still feel a certain kind of entitlement towards giving my opinion on a film that multitudes of people have watched over the past four decades – and so I shall impart what little creativity I have left to talk about Alien, a film that scared me more than most traditional horror films. Just a disclaimer – don’t expect this to be a particularly well-constructed and meaningful review. I’m feeling quite a few things about this movie right now, and while the logical choice would be to rest a bit and approach this with a clear mind, it is always more fun to take advantage of the immediate post-film jitters to get one’s raw, explicit opinion out there.

Where to start? Well, Alien is set on the Nostromo, a spacecraft looking for intelligent life out there in the wide universe. A signal alerts the crew to descend upon a mysterious planet where Kane (John Hurt) finds a submerged group of eggs, and using his insatiable curiousity, provokes the being within one of the eggs, causing him to have this alien being latch itself onto his face, and promptly lay eggs within his body (curiosity didn’t kill the cat, because the cat was one of the survivors of the entire ordeal). Kane becomes the host for the titular individual who causes fear and panic when it escapes after one of the most beautiful and poignant childbirth scenes in cinema history (obviously this is a joke, the famous chest-bursting scene made me scream in horror, despite the fact that I have seen it referenced and parodied countless times before). One by one, the crew of the Nostromo are killed by this alien being who is hellbent on simply destroying all traces of life, and it is up to Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) to defend them, especially when she is left in charge of the crew after her commanding officers themselves get picked off relatively early.

Honestly, despite how iconic Alien is as a film franchise, I do feel sorry for it to an extent. It came along only two years after the explosive pop culture phenomenon that was Star Wars, and much of the science fiction rhetoric was focused on Star Wars, which would obviously put Alien to a disadvantage, regardless of how different the two franchises actually are. However, while I will not attest to liking Alien more than I like Star Wars, I find Alien to do certain things far better than Star Wars, and then instead of pitting them against each other (you know, like I just did), we can look at how they helped initiate a proverbial Renaissnance of science fiction cinema. Not only is Alien a great film in its own right, it helped define science fiction cinema and assisted in bringing it to the high-grossing, endlessly entertaining genre it is today, and that was not an accident by any means – Alien is just that kind of film that set off a glorious domino effect which left cinema reeling.

I am someone who enjoys watching films that have some sense of history behind them, even if it means in terms of the fictional stories that we encounter throughout. I always find films that take careful precautions in world-building to be far more entertaining than those that just present a story on the surface without any semblance of meaning or backstory to help develop these characters. Science fiction has always been the genre that has focused particularly well on creating worlds for these characters to exist in, and I know that many of us wanted to explore the endless depths of space in Star Trek or go adventures in the varying and beautiful worlds of Star Wars. Alien is a different kind of film in this regard, but still one with extraordinary world-building, even if it is not entirely clear from looking at this film in isolation. The film starts pretty much in media res on the spacecraft, and the majority of the action of this film takes place on that spacecraft – yet, through the development of the characters and the way in which subtle nuances and details are added, we come to understand context within which this film resides. We only need to look at the various sequels and prequels that were made after this film, many of them with different but very capable directors behind the camera, willing to lend their own unique vision to this world that was created from the confines of a spacecraft hurling through the galaxy on the hope that it will end up back home without too many people dying.

Furthermore, if we are looking at how Alien constructs context and entire worlds through simply developing characters and situations, we obviously need to look at the actors behind these characters that gave life to these stories. Unlike many science fiction and fantasy films, Alien has a small core cast of seven performers, each one being mesmerizingly good at what they were supposed to do. There are so many actors I loved who were a part of this film, such as two of the finest actors to ever live who we sadly lost this year, namely John Hurt and Harry Dean Stanton, both of whom showed their undeniable talent in their performances here. Ian Holm was also suitably terrifying, almost as sinister as the alien itself, with his calm and collected manner being deeply unsettling, and I found the reveal of his true nature to be one of the most shocking moments in the entire film (and trust me, there are many shocking moments). However, this is a film that belongs to Sigourney Weaver, who is ultimately given the role of a lifetime with her role as Ripley – a tough, hardened heroine who will stop at nothing to defend herself and others. This was a star-making turn for Weaver, and launched her career to make her an absolute cinematic icon. The ensemble is small and thus everyone is given moments to develop and become complex and interesting individuals. They also have wonderful chemistry and play off each other well, which is becoming less common in science fiction cinema.

The way Alien is made is perhaps its most fascinating feature – the claustrophobic, intimate nature of this film, with the moments of sheer terror taking place in small, confined spaces, makes this film distinctive. Ridley Scott was only making his sophmore feature film when he set out to make Alien, and there is absolutely nothing as pure as a novice filmmaker’s ambitions – and this was surely an ambitious project. It blurs the lines between horror and science fiction, and in a way is a great forerunner for the slasher horror films that would become incredibly popular in the following decade. The cinematography creates a tense and terrifying atmosphere, and the spookiness of this film is legitimately unsettling to the point where it becomes a challenging film to watch, yet we cannot look away simply because this is, above all else, a wonderfully made film that we are drawn into, and there is absolutely no escape from it. It is a deeply scary film that sent chills down my spine, and I am still too on-edge to calm down after watching it. But that’s a good thing.

If this review seems a bit slight and short, understand that this is only the beginning – there are five more films that I am excited to watch over the coming weeks in order to become more acquainted with this world. There are a ton of things I can say about this film, but I know that these themes will be developed more in the coming films, so its more important to discuss them in a more relevant context. However, on its own, Alien is a really great film. Its innovative filmmaking, strong performances and properly terrifying story make it a film that is beyond deserving of its status as a classic of the science fiction genre, and the influence this film has made on science fiction cinema in general is incomparable and indelible. More than that, it is just a disturbing film, in the best possible way. A true and genuine classic, and one I am so shocked I waited so long to actually get around to watching. Hopefully such a mistake doesn’t happen again (although it probably will, let us be perfectly honest).