Alien

Rating:
Summary: Alien (1979)
Review: One of the best in the whole saga and by far the scariest. Sigourney Weaver delivers a wonderful perfomance as RIPLEY, the iron-willed woman who battles the alien after it slays her entire crew.

The trouble starts when KANE (played by John Hurt) is brought back aboard the ship with some sort of parasite attached to his face. DALLAS (played by Tom Skerritt) and ASH (played by Ian Holm) try 2 take it off but they discover that this parasite bleeds concentrated acid. Later on, this thing comes off by itself and dies. While sitting down 2 dinner, KANE starts 2 scream in agony. This little horrific creature bursts through his chest, killing KANE. The creature grows into a monstrous alien. One by one, the crew is slain until only RIPLEY is left.

A movie that should not B ignored. Every customer 2 this store will enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Alien (1979)
Review: This clever film, directed by legendary Ridley Scott, takes U further in 2 space than U can ever imagine.

It features Sigourney Weaver in the role of RIPLEY, the iron-willed woman who must destroy the monstrous alien. Tom Skerrit is in the role of DALLAS, the Nostromo's captain. Veronica Cartwright plays the lovable character LAMBERT. Harry Dean Stanton plays BRET, who is sort of a dim-wit. John Hurt plays KANE, the man was impregnated with the alien. Ian Holm plays the defective android, ASH. Yaphet Kotto is in the role of PARKER, who is sort of the rebellious one.

Their commercial ship, The Nostromo picks up what they think is an S.O.S. from the distant planet, LV 46. But the S.O.S. turns out 2 B a warning. DALLAS, LAMBERT, and KANE step off 2 investigate. KANE finds someplace that is swarming with unusual looking eggs. One of the eggs hatch. What jumps out is some sort of parasite. It jumps out of the egg and lands on KANE's face. DALLACE and ASH try 2 get thi thing off of him but what they discover is that this new organism bleeds concentrated acid. Later, the parasite came off itself and died. KANE finally awakes. The seven R sitting down 2 dinner, when KANE begins screaming in agony. This little creatur bursts through KANE's chest, causing him 2 die. The little creature runs off and grows in 2 a hideous alien. One by one, the crew is slain by the terrifying creature until only RIPLEY is left. In order 4 RIPLEY 2 kill this thing, she is blow up the entire ship. And she does so. Thus, making her the hero.

Rating:
Summary: Director's cut coming soon to theatres...
Review: ALIEN, the first film in the quadrilogy, is by far still the best. It may not have as much action as ALIENS, but it's much scarier. The acting is great, and it's always fun to guess who dies next.

According to Entertainment Magazine, director Ridley Scott is re-releasing a DIRECTOR'S CUT of this film in to theaters on October 31, 2003 (the same date as Halloween). It will have about 5-10 minutes of extra footage that was originally cut from the film back in 1979. This is NOT a "special edition," like George Lucas did with STAR WARS. Most likely, new special effects will NOT be added.

1979; 116 minutes; RATED R for violence/terror, distrubing images, profanity, and a scantially clad Sigourney Weaver.

Rating:
Summary: Bye bye crew .......
Review: The most terryfying sci-fi picture to ever come out, and perhaps one of the best ensemble of actors who really are convincing with their characters, and environments.

A deep space mining crew shouldn't have been so curious to answer an s.o.s. beackoning from an uncharted planetoid on their way back to earth. Sure, investigate, but to go deep into an alien spacecraft? And have an alien 'hide' itself on the way back into space with them? As dumb as they are, their characters conversate and argue like you were watching REAL LIFE t.v. They hardly needed to "act" their parts, making them great characters, and also they actually have characters you can see develop. Tom Skerrit plays their open minded and strong ruling captain Dallas, while our obvious and great heroine Weaver plays Lt. Ripley, careful and not taking risks like everyone else. Parker and Brett, best buds, and engine/ ship system techs, are the funny ones. Veronica Cartwright makes Lambert a fragile and nervous one. Ian Holm carves an odd shadow as Ash, with a shadowy thing, and poor John Hurt as Kane....poor Kane.

The Alien itself is terrifying istelf, a grusome and gothic original idea and design. When Brett faces the alien , you should hear the sickening growl it makes.....yuck. And bigger than a large man. The future in space according to all of involved in the movie's creation is metal, steel, and harsh, not shiny and sleek. The best part about the terror is not only the horrifying creature, but even the fact that they are so far away from any help. Space is looked upon as cold, lonely, and scary itself. Ridley Scott sure knows how to create terror that makes you squirm real bad. He locks you in the ship with no way out. And when it gets dark, and the crew's numbers dwindle, .....

Violent (owch) and really terryfying...it does mark high also as great filmmaking.....huh? What....what's that down the corridor....what the - ah ! Run ! It's the - aieeeeeeeeee!

Rating:
Summary: A Modern SF Classic...
Review: Star Wars, breathed new life into the science fiction genre. In its wake came "Alien", a film with a much darker tone, featuring characters that are actually from Earth. Putting a twist on the monster from space story, Ridley Scott's groundbreaking film would produce three sequels (so far), as well as a fair number of imitators. Now close to twenty-five years old, the film holds up rather well, except for some dated computer technology.

Awakened from deep sleep by the ship's computer nicknamed "Mother", the crew of the transport craft Nostromo is directed to investigate the source of some radio signals, coming from a nearby planet. A craft is sent down to the planet's surface, and a party sent to investigate. While exploring, crewmember Kane (John Hurt), encounters some strange "egglike" objects. A creature springs from one of the eggs and attaches itself to his face. Kane is placed in the infirmary, and later the creature is found apparently dead. During a meal, the alien bursts through Kane's chest, and escapes into the ship. The tiny alien grows to larger than man size, in the space of a few hours. The mature creature is then ready to seek out prey, and begins to reduce the size of the crew, a member or two at a time.

Editing keeps the views of the creature to a minimum, and we don't actually see what happens to most of the crew, as they become victims. Our imagination goes to work, and that can create an even deeper feeling fear. When one of the crew is killed, all we hear is her breathing, and then a strangled scream. Soon, only Ripley (Sigorney Weaver) and her cat Jones, are left alive. She manages to escape the mothership just before it self-destructs, unaware that there is a stowaway aboard. Perhaps the Alien is dazed, for it doesn't seem to be very alert or aggressive. Ripley succeeds in ushering the creature out of the ship, and treats it to a good old-fashioned deep space barbecue.

Alien takes the traditional monster tale into space. The story is strong, and features a truly unique and frightening monster. The Alien creature remains a mysterious terror, which cannot be defeated, only destroyed. The setup is natural and logical, and the characters behave like real people. An excellent screenplay keeps the level of suspense high, and the cast all deliver fine performances. The movie contains some elements common to the horror tradition. A group, is suddenly facing a horrible unknown danger. There is one member willing to sacrifice the lives others (Ash), a bubblehead who panics under pressure, costing lives (Lambert), a harmless handyman type (Brett), the sacrificed leader (Dallas), and an unexpected heroine rising to the occasion (Ripley).

Now to that dated computer technology. Based on the technology of today, anyone would find the presentation in film very unrealistic, perhaps even humorous. This is not a criticism, just an observation. In the film, whoever has the command, has access to "Mother", apparently a room sized computer loaded with tiny lights. This construct is obviously for atmosphere and effect only. Who believes that a futuristic computer would occupy an entire room and use light bulbs? Access is via a terminal with an archaic keyboard, where questions are typed in. Text is displayed on monochromatic monitors located across the room, for "easy" viewing. In addition there is a sound effect, like an old teletype, as the text slowly scrawls across the screen. How very quaint! When was the last time text actually scrolled like that on your display? In this view of the future, they could make an android that passes for a human, but not modernize the mainframe.

Just poking a little fun at a classic, so don't take offense. Alien is great movie, and should be part of any science fiction fan's DVD collection.

Rating:
Summary: Must-Have Sci Fi Horror Classic!
Review: ALIEN - the original chest-bursting, face hugging horror classic that revolutionized Sci Fi. The story is simple and primal - a space crew responds to what they think is a distress call. Turns out much more is going on in a dark corner of the galaxy that leads them to an unstoppable killing force that may have allies in surprising places onboard. Ridley Scott directed this nail-biting excercise in film with an unabashed talent for the beautiful and disturbing. This is the DVD to show anybody who thinks CGI is effective. Using simple chicken parts and children and toy soldiers as stand-ins he creates the ultimate paranoid spookhouse. Many have tried to copy it's plot, but nobody has matched the sheer terror this one can pulll off. DVD transfer is amazing. The picture and sound are all perfectly rendered! And an invaluable commentary from Ridley himself makes this one an essential DVD to own for yourself. Sigourney Weaver's sublime acting and HR Giger's designs push it all over the top! Pure video bliss.

Rating:
Summary: Not the movie we went to see.
Review: It was the summer of 1979. The weather was low humidity and no rain. We popped the corn, packed up the kids and headed for the drive in on route 64 to a movie the kids wanted to see. We always waited till the second feature started before leaving, letting traffic clear out. The second feature was a movie we never heard of ALIEN. Little did we know that we had stumbling into a great movie. This is one of the great SciFi-Horror movies of all times. Only its sequel ALIENS is better. This was even better on a big screen TV that watching it in a drivein theatre.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Movie I've Ever Seen
Review: This Movie is truly magical. It sends you on an adventure through space and time and an alien who looks like a muppet. But take out the muppet part and you got the best darn movie america has ever seen in the five hundred years it has existed. It starts with sigourney weaver and her crew who land on a planet and then the egg opens and the spider comes out and empregnates one of the astronauts and then chaos, everyone dies except sigourney and her cat. Or did her cat die? I don't know. Watch alien to see if the cat ripley dies. It's especially sentimental if you've been abducted by an alien. HA! HA! HA! Now back to buisiness. This movie is rated R but it has mild violence next to all the other violent stuff that the movie industry has come out with. It's very exciting. I think I've watched every movie. Wait. I've haven't watched number three. Don't watch that one. It stinks. The best one is alien ressurection. Buy it at your local food store today!

Rating:
Summary: Pretty dull--I'd skip it
Review: First off, this science fiction horror movie was neither thought provoking as a science fiction movie should be, nor was it particularly scary like a horror movie should be. The plot could be summed up as: man-eating alien gets aboard spaceship and kills everyone except the main character who escapes and kills it. Yeah, that's pretty much it. There were admittedly some scenes that were kind of tense, but they were generally pretty predictable.

In fact, this entire movie was really pretty boring. The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars is because the scene where the alien comes out of the guys chest was cool. Generally though, the special effects were pretty mediocre by todays standards, though they must have been groundbreaking in 1979 (hence the many positive reviews from other people I guess).

If you want a good sci-fi movie, see Bladerunner, see Star Wars, see 2001, see Minority Report, see the Matrix, see Brazil, see 12 Monkeys. If you want a good horror movie, see Carrie, see Stephen King's It, see Amityville Horror, see the Shining. But as for this--I'd skip it.

Rating:
Summary: Is anybody in the corridor ? Hmm....huh? What th-AIEEEEEEE !
Review: The most suspensful horror movie in such a long time. The great concept as well is that the crew of the Nostranamo is in isolated space....farrrr away from any other assistance.

Once the terror begins, it escalates, and makes their situation totally helpless. The acting was very surreal, and not ACTED. The fear and even annoyance with each others griping was really a true display of character.

The ship being all industrial set and not so cozy was even better as well. Thew alien was not only terrifying, but really terrifying in a sick way. it was truly a terror.

Highlight: The interior of the derilect spaceship.....what an awesight.

Lowpoint: Well, the strobelights during the countdown for ship detonation was realistic.....and super annoying. Owch.

P.S. - Again, a part of the terror and suspense is the desolation.....of space......they are so far out there......away from any other help. Even aside from the creature, suspense comes from the vastness of the outer reaches of space. And the quiet parts as well.....OOOhh....haha