Lookback: 'Alien' (1979)
Image Source: IMDb
Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien is one of the most iconic films in cinema history. The film follows the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial starship halfway back to Earth. The crew is awakened from their cryo-sleep after an alien distress signal is picked up by their ship’s automated system. The crew investigates and soon finds themselves in a fight for their lives against a creature they don’t understand and sabotage from inside their ship. The film featured legendary actors such as Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, and John Hurt. Let’s take a look at the impact the film had on the horror genre, why it was such a hit in 1979, and why the film is still iconic nearly five decades after its release.
Trailblazing
Alien wasn’t the first film to explore what happens when humans and alien lifeforms come into contact with one another. It came out in the middle of a sci-fi boom with Star Wars, Star Trek, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind all gripping audiences leaving them wanting more. So what made Alien so different from all the others? It took all of the elements that people love about both sci-fi and horror and combined them into the perfect film. It also took an assuming spaceship and turned into a haunted house complete with jump scares, claustrophobic spaces, and seemingly inescapable situations. The film did what no other film had done before and it showed audiences that they hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of what can be done with sci-fi films.
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Impact On Horror
Image Source: CultureSlate
While Alien had a profound impact on the film industry in general, its biggest impact was felt within the horror genre. When the film first came out the horror genre was saturated with slashers and monster movies. Each film featured the same formula: pretty girls are attacked by monsters or knife-wielding maniacs, lots of sex, and plenty of fully anticipated jump scares. This film swooped in and delivered a formula no one could predict.
The monster is hidden for much of the film forcing the audience to guess along with the crew what it looks like, the men are attacked more frequently than the women, there is no sex or drugs, and the jumpscares are completely unpredictable. This new formula impacted not only what audiences would come to expect from their horror films, but also how writers and directors would create scares in non-sci-fi horror films.
Almost 50 Years Later
Image Source: IMDb
The most impressive thing about this film is that it is still iconic and has only gotten better with age. This isn’t something that can be said for all films from the 70s and 80s. So, what is it about this film that has kept it so relevant? Well for starters it is a truly flawless film. While I do not see this a horror movie it is still one of the best sci-fi films I have ever seen.
Another amazing thing about this movie is that it features one of the strongest female characters to ever be featured in a film. She is brilliant, strong, and doesn’t fall into any of the stereotypical tropes that women are typically forced into in films. Another great thing about the film is that it doesn’t matter how much you have heard about it there are still twists that you will not see coming. This film is one of the few that I feel genuinely deserves the label of “masterpiece”.
Alien is currently available to watch on Hulu and rent from Prime Video.
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