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Alien
United States, 1979 BBFC Classification: 18 (Violence, swearing)
Cast: Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright, Bolaji Badejo It's 21 years since Ridley Scott scared the world silly with the film of the week and the good news is that Alien has hardly dated. With the whole saga recently released on DVD, most fans have been rubbing their hands with glee while watching the whole movie with outtakes, alternate score and Scott commentary. While many such offerings tend to be padding, the producers went to town on a flick that redefined the sci-fi genre. In case the whole thing has passed you by, the film centres on a bunch of deep space truckers who are awoken from hypersleep to investigate a distress call. They investigate the source of the SOS and crew member Kane (John Hurt) returns to the ship with a hitchhiker which proceeds to wreak havoc. You could write the plot on the back of an envelope and while it's essentially a haunted house horror in space, the grotesque production design seeps into your subconscious and will give you nightmares for weeks to come. The seed of the idea was born when Dark Star writer Dan O'Bannon was staying at a friend's house in the early Seventies. His version of sci-fi epic Dune had just collapsed and the writer and special effects whiz was broke. Friend Ronald Shusett was working on what would become Total Recall, so they got their heads together and came up with the original screenplays for both that movie and Alien. Director Ridley Scott, piping hot property after his award-winning The Duellists, read the script and within 18 hours he was in Hollywood working on arguably the best movie of 1979. He cast a then unknown Sigourney Weaver as Ripley - a part originally intended for a man. She would become the template for a series of no-nonsense movie heroines such as Sarah Connor in Terminator and Samantha Caine in The Long Kiss Goodnight.
While all the seven strong cast are excellent, one of the best is Ian Holm who plays science officer Ash. The acclaimed thesp, who went on to star in The Fifth Element and eXistenZ, has very fond memories of working on Alien. "That was a very good film," he recalls, little knowing at the time it would turn out to be such a blockbuster. "Because it was made in 1979, I would have done anything then," he laughs. "I certainly had no idea it was going to become one of the great celebrated pieces of cinema." Ash is not all that he seems and Holm's portrayal remains unforgettably sinister. "That was very strange. I can't to this day think why I got cast in that. I was one of the first people to be cast and then it was very interesting because I could see half way through the film the emphasis changed and there was the birth of a star in Sigourney. "You could almost sense it. It wasn't just the underwear scene," he laughs. "I could just tell she was going to go on to big things. She's also a very nice lady." There's one moment near the end of the movie where Holm really had to suffer for his art, looking more like the centrepiece of some bizarre cannibal feast. "After four hours in make-up, I was surrounded by spring onions and milk." Holm grimaces at the memory. "Then Ridley would go away for a few hours and I'd be stuck there in this table with spaghetti everywhere and milk all over my face. It really stank under the lights as you can imagine." Thanks to a great cast, some stunning production design by HR Giger and a haunting Jerry Goldsmith score, Alien remains one of the most terrifying thrillers ever committed to celluloid.
The Duellists (1977)
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Blade Runner (1982)
Thelma and Louise (1991)
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