Alien (1979) *****

If you could call Alien by another name it could be Alfred Hitchcock Goes To Space. Alien isn’t your typical lost in space film where a group of humans runs into something out there that causes carnage and mayhem. It’s a film about suspense. It’s like Agatha Christie… in orbit.

The bulk of the film takes place aboard the Nostromo, an interstellar mining ship heading back to earth with a full payload. When the crew, suspended in hibernation, is awakened they naturally assume that they are close to home. The thing is that they have actually stopped due to a signal from an unoccupied planet and upon investigation and an accident, the crew may have brought something sinister aboard. As the film progresses it really becomes 10 Little Indians as the crew is knocked off one by one by whatever has come aboard the Nostromo.

Alien is a film that would have never been made before the release of Star Wars. This is the era when sci-fi was hot and this was one in a long line of films set in outer space. It was a saturated market where most films were lost in the tide. Disney had the Black Hole. Hell, James Bond even went into space. The analogy that cream rises to the top applies to eras of milking the gravy train and Alien is that cream. It rose above the other ridiculous fare that followed Lucas’ masterpiece. Ridley Scott could have stolen the Star Wars feel, but he doesn’t. He creates an atmosphere that is steeped more in the thriller genre than sci-fi. This is not a film that mesmerizes with its sights, but puts you on edge with its tension. Who will get it? Where? When?

The cast of Alien is one of the most impressive assembled. Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, and John Hurt fill out the crew, but the glimmer of greatness goes to Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. She is essentially the rock that this film holds onto and lives on, almost like the title character itself. She is forever linked to this franchise, but has grown beyond it instead of being buried underneath it. It’s the great cast that pushes this film to pure greatness in cinema.

Alien is essentially one of the watersheds of film, moving the evil alien from being a monster to an intelligent predator that stalks its prey and represents something that is presumed unstoppable. Alien proved that horror could go beyond the typical domains and furthered the idea that science fiction could be an intelligent genre in film, following in the footsteps of 2001 and Star Wars. It wasn’t for kids anymore. Alien is a sci fi masterpiece that has few equals. This is a classic.