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Alien
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The first and scariest of the Alien series, this
movie was also the second movie whose entire dialogue I ended up memorizing (the first
being Star Wars). I had never seen Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John
Hurt, Ian Holm, Angela Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto or Harry Dean Stanton in any other
movie before, which doesn't say much, since I was still a minor at the time.
Directed by Ridley Scott, this is more or less a haunted house story set in space,
where 7 people are stalked by a barely-glimpsed enemy. I've since seen other ugly
alien monster movies, but none are scarier (to me) than H.R. Giger's design
here. Even the Kenner toy of the thing (for kids - go figure) scared the crap out
of a friend of mine when I woke him up with the sight of it.
Alien also stands out as the first movie I'd seen before
where the characters are a) not stupid and b) a female won. Not by running screaming
into the woods and getting lucky, but by formulating a plan and frying the thing once
and for all. As we all know, Ellen Ripley then went on to sequel hell.
Alien doesn't need the other movies. No, not even the
more popular James Cameron sequel. This is a creepy film with gore in the right
places, a truly original (and realistic) lifecycle for the creature, and great acting.
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