In space no one can hear you scream

In Space no one can hear you scream.
THAT is a tagline

In 1979 a British director set himself on a mission to make a new concept in film making. Just two years earlier, a young director called George Lucas opened the door for plots and scripts that featured adventures and science fiction in space; now, it was the time for Ridley Scott to present to us viewers the experience of horror and fear in space, where as the tag line says... "no one can hear you scream."

Alien is a great movie not only because of the impact it has created ever since it was released. It is a great movie because it shows how beautiful it is to see our imagination taking control and becoming an important factor as we enjoy every shot and every scene. It proves that special effects aren't needed to make something brilliant, because the best special effect is the one you create in the mind of the viewer: his or her ability to imagine the best and the worst scenario happening.

The mastermind Scott

The first thing Scott sets is the right mood for the viewer. From the moment Alien begins, you know something is not right. Right there, from the start, from that initial shot of the Nostromo cargo ship, something deep inside you understands that somehow, somewhere, there will be trouble in the movie: it's just a matter of time. And this tense mood never dissappears... at all. Well, maybe in the last 60 seconds of the movie, but that's about it. All through the entire duration of the film, you feel uncomfortable, you feel tension, you feel nerves in the environment.

Alien's plot is compelling: an unidentified distress signal wakes up the crew of the ship on its way back to Earth. Everyone on board thinks they have made it home, unfortunately that's not the case. The ranking officers conclude a nearby ship may be calling for help and eventually, they decide to investigate. These initial minutes are faithful to the uncomfortable mood sensed from the beginning: you get to know the main characters and you can see that while they share a job, they are nothing more than a group of co-workers. They aren't friends or relate to each other, or even wish to share good  times. They just want to get their work done and that's it. They don't hate each other, but one can conclude they would like to be anywhere else but living in a ship with each other; which brings me to the next main character you get to know, the ship.

The Nostromo

The Nostromo is a huge cargo ship and it looks exactly as any cargo ship you can imagine, but in space: it's dark, it's enormous, it transmit that sensastion of emptyness, solitaire atmosphere, and it has the minimum requirements to live in it, nothing more. In essence, it is a hostile place to be. There are corridors every where and it looks like you may need days to go through the entire ship, which kind of connects with the tagline of the movie. The ship is so large, that you can tell that if you'd get lost in it and cry for help, no one, not even inside the ship could hear you scream.

A lot of Alien fans are looking forward to
Prometheus and its explanation to the Space Jockey

From here and on the story is well know, and this is why I would like to emphasize on a few parts of the film which I embrace and admire. As Dallas, Lambert and Kane descend on the planet to investigate the signal, they encounter a mummified alien life form attached to a ship of its own. The brief shots of the "space jockey" or how it became known in the industry and the fanbase, are frightening yet alone enigmatic to give birth of a legend on how did that pilot get there and why was he sitting there as an open chested corpse.

This "showing little" theme becomes recurrent in Alien, as Scott definitely leaves the rest to the imagination of the viewer: no further explanation is needed, and no more can be asked. We then quickly see how an egg hatch opens to permit the "creature" break into Kane's helmet and attach itself to his head. Next shot we have is the crew back at the pod door arguing with Ripley on that Kane needs to be taken to the nursing room, to which Ripley disagrees following protocol procedures -another proof of the low care the characters have for each other-.

The prelude to one of the greatest
villains of all time

At this point if you have never seen Alien, it is not clear what will happen next: will Kane turn into an Alien? Will the creature turn into a living Alien? Silence is the only answer the atmosphere allows everyone to have, until the climatic "chest-bursting" scene: a surprise and unexpected turn of events to anyone watcthing.

As Dallas asks if "anyone wishes to say anything" before he pushes a ship button that tosses Kane's body out of the Nostromo and into outer space, the tension reaches a climax moment: nobody wishes to say anything and nobody wants to say anything. They are all in big trouble and they know it. Ironically, it is Bret perhaps the character who less thought of it is the one who dies next. Then begins one of the greatest sequences in the history of cinema, at least in my opinion. The build up that leads to Dallas' death is such a wonderful piece of art, I never get enough of it every time I watch this masterpiece.

Just like in the beginning when you know that right from the start there is something wrong, it is now Dallas' turn to feel this sensation. He talks to mother and asks about "his chances". The answer couldn't be more down to Earth. From that point and on, Dallas knows that he is living his last minutes.

Dallas asks the ship's mother computer about his chances: They are not good... at all

When he enters the tunnel and the background soundtrack joins in, the mood is set for him to fall victim of the very creature he permitted to enter the ship he captains. The tense music building up along with Lambert's radar combine for a terrorific minutes that combine pieces of claustrophobia, heat, desperation, fear and sense of defeat to a power way greater than his own. A whispering "what's happening" summarizes the whole emotion. Finally the Alien appears, again just briefly, to claim his victim never to be heard or seen again. I haven't seen, but heard that the Director shot a scene of showing a coccooned Dallas', but pulled it off. It was the right choice.

If you own the DVD, pause this exact frame.
The entire scene is fantastic 

After Ian Holm justifies the weird nature of his character, and the remaining three human crew dispose of him, comes one of the most enigmatic and seeked questions in horror movies of all time: what did the Alien do to Lambert? In another perfectly directed sequence that begins with the prelude of a heart beat anticipating a soon death of a character, the now gigantic xenomorph appears before Parker and Lambert with no other intent than to take their lives away. As Lambert watches the Alien kill his Parker, the tail of the creature slowly and scary heads its way up between her legs. It is disturbing but magestic at the same time. After a few  brief shots of the Alien, the scene then cuts to Ripley running trying to save her friends and all we are left is to hear Lambert breathing heavily and then scream loudly and briefly, to then become silent forever. What ever happend to her within those seconds, is left to our imagination.

Ripley in her final
confrontation with the Alien

The movie then enteres its final stages, in which the last surviving crew member Lt Ripley surprisngly outsmarts the Alien creature, who initially looked as it had gotten the better of her by hiding inside the escape shuttle. The movie concludes with a sense of relief and satisfaction that at least two could make it out of the terror, again with not much said in the end. Seven years later, a young James Cameron made sequel that many consider worth mentioning in the same conversation as Scott's. While I agree with the statement, I always think how it would have been interesting how immortal and how high would have Scott's Alien status gain if no sequel would have been made.

Scott would go on to make another sci-fi classic and also candidate of one of the greatest movies in the genre of all time, Blade Runner. However the impact and aftermath created by Alien showed us that regadless of names and resources, it is when the right pieces fit in the right place that you get a great result and an immortal art.