Matt Evans on how to make Alien terrifying once again…
With Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 officially announced by Fox and the studio’s commitment to Prometheus sequels further down the line, the Alien franchise is alive once more and is heading dangerously close to ‘Cinematic Universe’ territory. This is a potential state of affairs that will no doubt leave many fans ravenous but is one that is sadly misguided.
The universe wherein the events of Alien take place is necessarily sparse. A huge amount of what makes the original movie work so well is the extent to which it is knowingly, actively unexpansive in its world building. It is a film, in part, about vulnerability. For the majority of the running time, both the audience and the characters are in some critical way in the dark. Nothing is entirely clear. The characters are directed by a vague and nebulous force (The Company) to investigate a planet they know nothing about for reasons that are hidden from them. The event that ultimately sets the film in motion (the crash landing of the Derelict on LV426) is a happening left entirely transparent to both the viewer and the characters. The ship is ancient and alien, its pilot fossilised and its cargo horrific and unstoppable. It is, conspicuously, unknowable. This element of the incomprehensible power is key to the vulnerability of the audience and characters and, hence, the horror and power of the film.
The last thing an Alien movie needs is answers. We can apply the same reasoning to the creature itself.
The Alien itself has changed a lot since its initial inception. I would argue that, as the series grew and more detail is provided (particularly in the, otherwise fantastic, Aliens) the creature has lost some of what made it so unique. It became more insectoid and, as such, more understandable. We can recognise elements of the familiar in the lifecycle presented in Aliens; The drones and the Queen are conceptually opaque notions of reproduction, hierarchy and biologically driven purpose. It’s simply not as frightening because, to some extent, we get it. The creature that presents itself so horrifically in the 1979 original is not analogous to anything we’ve ever experienced, insect or otherwise.
H.R Giger’s original design is not terrifying in the way a giant insect is terrifying. It presses far more buttons than just ‘fear of a large and dangerous creature’. Hermaphroditic and mechanically sexual, Giger’s Alien is a walking violation. It’s easy to forget, after the swarming bullet-fodder of Aliens, that the first creature moves, not like a soldier, but like a pervert. It moves almost sensually around the Nostromo and kills, or in Lambert’s case rapes, with a disgusting focus on intimacy. It moves close. It caresses and drools. It’s not even clear from the first movie that it is driven to reproduce, though that is always assumed. It seems, rather, to be pursuing its desires. It stalks the ship, not to bring hosts for its offspring or Queen, but for reasons unclear and playful. It is utterly, stupefying scary.
This aspect of the creature is conspicuously toned down in later manifestations, perhaps because approaching content like this is extremely difficult; being too overt with the sexual imagery can cause the movie to cross the line into the exploitational and crude. The issue is that, without these overtones, the creature is simply that. A creature. We have a lot of those in horror and science fiction as is, many of which don’t have the problem of having been utilised solidly for decades.
Re-energising a creature that has been overexposed and over explained for the better part of 30 years is not an easy task. But it can be done by revisiting what made the Alien so compelling and horrifying in the first instance.
Matt Evans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ONsp_bmDYXc
Originally published March 9, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
