Alien: Director’s Cut (1979)

Rating 18

Length 1hr 51

Release 6.9.1979

About In deep space, the crew of the commercial starship Nostromo is awakened from their cryo-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel. The terror begins when the crew encounters a nest of eggs inside the alien ship. An organism from inside an egg leaps out and attaches itself to one of the crew, causing him to fall into a coma.

---

Treat

• It’s visually a stunning film. There’s no question about the detail and effort that has gone on the set and alien tech.
• There are plenty of individual scenes that are incredible. One being the famous ‘chest buster’ scene that has been mimicked so many times that I’m sure I knew about it way before I saw this film.
• The xenomorph itself is really good. Couldn’t tell you if it’s the physical thing itself that makes it good, because the film makes clever use of close ups and lighting to hide a lot from the audience. It works, it really does.
• The music and, to a certain extent, the set design seems like a homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Perhaps it lends itself as a type of foreboding when it comes to Ash, but either way it makes for an interesting and almost clinical atmosphere prior to the shit hitting the fan.

Trick

• It’s first half feels rather boring and longwinded. As a group on a mission in deep space, there’s a big disconnect between the members. While that makes Ripley’s quarantine decision clear cut, it makes Lambert’s reaction a little odd. Unless of course she was fucking Kane, but she just seemed to be a sappy bitch.
• In contrast to 1982’s The Thing which has no women at all and no objectification we have here two women, a wall full of naked ladies and gratuitous undersized-knicker’s pussy shot of Weaver. Which, I might add, wouldn’t seem so gratuitous had Ripley not been presented as an almost cold genderless character throughout the film. Also, what the fuck did you use the George Lucas line on Weaver when it came to her bra?
• Did we really need to see Bilbo Baggins with a face full of Hobbit gang bang juice?! Seriously, who had the idea of spraying his face with the white stuff?!
• What the fuck is with the damn cat and why did it pop up out of nowhere? Do you have a rat problem? At which point the dildo boxes you’re using to find the xenomorph will be a little useless, right? Other than it being used in a scare fake out, I don’t see the point in it. And I love cats.

Final Thoughts

Amazing cast (except Lambert. Lambert can go fuck herself), but on the whole a little too bland. Give me Aliens any day.