Rating: 
Summary: Masterpiece in suspense and terror
Review: While Aliens gives you in-the-face terror, Alien relies on a blend of tension, atmosphere and occassional in-your-face terror.It is hard to believe that this film is over 20 years old, it is still as fresh today as in 1979. One would expect the special effects to be poor compared with today's standards, but this is not the case. The film will make you jump so high in parts! A recommendation is to watch it with someone else. DVD SUMMARY:
Original DVD is now out of print, but featured deleted scenes and a nice transfer. A new edition is now available which supersedes this edition very nicely ie. It is crammed full of extras!
Rating: 
Summary: Spectacular
Review: What a classic. I just saw the rerelease of this film in the theaters and had forgotten how great it actually is! You won't find an endless string of senseless action scenes here. Alien is pure suspense, worthy of Hitchcock. The first half hour of the film intriguing yet slow paced, lulling you into a false sense of security. The characters are developed and you start to get a feel for them as real people. When action finally does explode onto the screen, it is well thought out and suspenseful. One of my favorite scenes from the movie is when Brett goes searching for the cat in the gothic bowls of the ship. You know he's gunna get killed. You know the alien'll get him. But the tension gnaws at your gut for what seams like eternity as the scene draws out. This ain't your typical action flick! The atmosphere of this movie is incredible! Instead of bombarding you with flashy effects and loud noises, most of the movie is eerily dark and quiet, save the creepy humming of the ship in the background. It makes it all the more effective when the alien actually does pounce in a sudden burst of noise and movement. This is suspense at its best. One of the greatest things about this movie is that you hardly ever see the alien. Instead it remains hidden, lurking in the shadows letting your imagination terrify you way more that 1970's special effects ever could. Unfortunately this fabulous film was followed by a line of mediocre sequels. The fiasco "Aliens", directed by James Cameron was (like all of his other work) mostly a non stop sequence of loud noises and not-so-special effects without much in the line of suspense or character development. Lets not even talk about Alien Resurrection. But the original Alien is worth seeing. If you are at all a fan of science fiction or suspense films, you'll enjoy every second of it. If you haven't already seen this movie, get it and prepare yourself for one of the most terrifying movie experiences in you life.
Rating: 
Summary: New Directors Cut 3 Star, while original is solid four star.
Review: Alien is one of my favorite films of at time. It is a master-piece of tension, physical space, atmosphere, tidy special effects, ensemble acting, and the unrelenting desire to unsettle. Its gorgeous cinemascope frame remains one of the best photographed in the history of film, and its legacy lives on both in the trilogy of sequels it has spawned, the presence of its titular beast (one of the most influential move monsters ever) in our pop culture, and in Sigourney Weavers incarnation of the iconic Ellen Ripley. It remains one of the few films that I can watch over and over again and never get tired of. All this explains why news of a theatrical re-release became my cinematic event of 2003. I had been looking forward to this for years. Too young to have seen the original film in theaters, I had hoped that eventually the opportunity would present itself. The chance to see at the marvelous tracking shots through the corridor of the Nostromo, Brett's (Harry Dean Stanton) quest to find the cat Jones in the bowels of the ship, Dallas' (Tom Skerrit) trip into the ventilation system, the verbal and later physical spacing between Ash (Ian Holm) and Ripley, Parker (national treasure Yaphet Kotto) and Brett's comic interplay ... all of that, finally on the big screen. What's unfortunate about this re-release is the same as most theatrical re-releases of moderate-to-classic films: The director has suffered from a cumulative attack of coulda-woulda-shoulda syndrome, and decides to rethink and rework the film for contemporary audiences. Apocalypse Now Redux. The Exorcist: The version that you've never seen. Those Star War's "special editions." What do all of these films have in common? All of them were diminished with the addition of unnecessary material. In each case, a director who just can't leave well enough alone sullies the classic status of the Original film. (Mad props are due to Brian DePaima, who refused to let Scarface be altered in any way for its limited theatrical reissue before its DVD release ... sense a pattern?) In interviews, Alien director Ridley Scott has spoken of making little trims here and there to help the pacing of the film) and show more glimpses of the alien). He has said, too, that the addition of the often spoken of "cocoon sequence" now fits very well in the film (the exact opposite of what he had been saying for years). The original version of Alien starts out slowly, building gradually until the last 25 minutes are as relentlessly paced as any action classic. To try and speed up the first part of the film, then stop dead the last act to include a shocking, previously-deleted scene seems nothing more than a sop to contemporary film-going audiences with no patience for '70s pacing and a fetishized devotion to the cuff of the deleted scene. This is the innovator, not the imitator, and each shift feels like a tiny betrayal. For This version of Alien to be coiled "The Director it Cut" is a lie. Ridley Scott wasn't forced to cut any material from the original at the studio's behest, nor did he have grave censorship concerns which required toning down any sequences. The film as released to theaters in 1979 was his director's cut, because he and editor Terry Rawlings cut it. This new version, I strongly suspect, exists to promote Fox's up coming Alien DVD box set. The seven-person (and one cat) crew of the Nostromo is again expendable; the priority is delivering more of the alien. Should you see it? Absolutely as a good 90 percent or more it is still the same film, and its' soundscape will mess you up in a theater with a good system, and the DVD directors cut sounscape definitely falls into the same category, regardless of how large your home TV screen might be. Will it replace the original? Defiantly, no. For new version I give it a *** rating, while rating the original receives a solid **** star rating.
Rating:
Summary: new release expected?
Review: This movie rocked, big time. Does anyone know if there will be a special edition or something like that with the director's cut out in theaters again?
Rating:
Summary: One of the scariest movies ever made
Review: Ridley Scott's original 1979 film pulsates with dread and menace. Its darkened corridors mask a reptillian horror unmatched by any other in cinema. "Alien" scared the hell out of me when I saw it in its theatrical release, and the other night on DVD, it scared hell out of me again. Forget the sequels. This is one of the best movies of all time. Yes, the story is simple, but that's the whole point. "Alien" is a fundamental horror story, your basic haunted house movie taken to the Nth degree. I love the fact it has only seven characters (OK, nine, if you count Mother and the alien itself ... the space jockey doesn't count). I love its simplicity, its straightforwardness. Aside from being a creepy, blood-curdling horror film (only "The Exorcist" and the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" top the chest-burster scene), it is also hard-core science fiction. James Cameron's sequel was an action-thriller (and an excellent one), and the subsequent sequels were just redundant. Scott's movie is the one for the ages. It's about evil in a shape-shifting form. It's about our fear of the dark. It's about the bogeyman. It's about our irrational fear of creepy-crawlies, spiders, worms, snakes. It is by turns subtle and terrifying. It scares us by hiding the alien, revealing it only in bits and snatches (those exploding jaws!). There is surprisingly little blood; "Alien Resurrection" was a revolting gore fest. And it's a thoughtful film. It actually pauses to consider what a miracle the alien is on a biological level, which helps reinforce the fear and mystery that surround the creature. In fact, the whole film is soaked in mystery. What is the intent of the beacon that attracts the Nostromo? What is the nature of the alien pilot, its own chest exploded in a gruesome foreshadowing of Kane's fate? What laid those eggs? How long had they been waiting down in the bowels of that awesome ship? Was the full-grown alien male or female? What did it try to do with Brett and Dallas? How exactly does it kill Lambert and Parker? Questions left largely unanswered. Not a problem for me -- I like loose ends, things left to ponder. That's the difference between a "plot" and a "story." There's a hidden layer -- the fact that a faceless corporation sent those astronauts to their doom, knowingly, in order to extract the ultimate bioweapon. "Alien" is a subtle jab at Corporate America, the creature itself a representation of "the company's" blind, murderous greed. See this movie. I repeat, if you love good movies, great movies, then seen this one. If you haven't already.
Rating:
Summary: Outside, no one can hear you scream.
Review: "Alien" is the first chapter to this amazing science fiction series. This is the first horror movie to take place in space. This edition explores how Ripley got involved with the alien species. Many unexpected thrill arise that may cause the audience to scream and/or jump out of their seats. These events become symbolism of the movie. The series of events make "Alien" one of the most creative and original movies made. Director Ridley Scott terrificly guided everyone to his unique vision. The alien costume is highly creative and very scary looking. Its appearance and its biology may be enough to give the audience nightmares. The Oscar winning visual effects wonderfully made The Nostromo, the planet LV-426, and the space atmosphere real looking. The sound effects give those nightmarish scenes the added eye and ear-opening effect. All featured special effects were ahead of its time. Such combination will never be forgotten. "Alien" is the movie that made Sigourney Weaver famous. Her despliction of Third Officer Ripley was wonderfully acted. All the other six actors also performed their roles wonderfully. Their death-defying reactions give this movie the necessary added scary effect. Many other movies released after 1979 attempted similar scenes to try to make them as scary. None have reached the intensity of "Alien". Fans of this movie, science fiction, and horror should also watch the other three chapters of this series: "Aliens", "Alien 3", and "Alien: Ressurection". This will give the audience the added pleasure to one of the best movie series in science fiction history.
Rating:
Summary: Dark and delightful
Review: H. R. Geiger designed the beautifully novel monster for this milestone in sci-fi cinema. This is best thought of as pure anti Star Trek. Star Trek is set in a universe dominated by the Federation, a thoroughly enlightened and civilized force for good. The Alien movies are set in a world dominated by the Company, a cynical, corrupt and impersonal force for evil. In such a world there is not a lot to do except try to survive and, for the characters in this movie, that gets quite tricky. The crew of an obscure mining ship are woken from their intergalactic slumber by a distress call from an unknown planet only to find themselves stalked around their magnificently bleak spaceship by an evil and indestructible creature that lives on the flesh of the weak and whining crew only to meet its match in the cool-as-steel Sigourney Weaver. It's dark, delightful and a lot scarier than almost all its countless imitations since.
Rating:
Summary: Well it's definately scary.
Review: I figured that I might as well review it now before those lamebrained MTV kids get a hold of it. Again Hollywood made the mistake of re-releasing a horror classic, and not only that, they have the gawl to maket it as "The Scariest Movie ever Made!" Why?! That's like asking people to critisize and put down the movie. It happened to The Exorcist, and now Alien is gonna fall into the chatagory where you'll start seeing reviews like "I laughed at this film" and "this wasn't scary at all", and my personal favorite "this movie put me to sleep." You see if they see a movie marketed as the scariest movie, they must see it, make fun of it, and walk out and say they were uneffected by the movie. That's the problem with today's society, it isn't cool to be scared in a movie. Well you won't be effected by this movie if you won't let it effect you, and if you wanna laugh at it be my guest, but you'll be missing out on a truly terrifying film. Now it's debateable on what the scariest movie is, in my oppinion the exorcist is, but I can see how people could classify this as the scariest movie. Esspecially when it was first released. It lost some of it's power due to the unessecary sequels that turned the series into and action/sci-fi. While Aliens is my favorite in the series, this is easily the scariest. Partially inspired by 1958's It! The Terror from Beyond Space, this instant classic set a tone of its own, offering richly detailed sets, ominous atmosphere, relentless suspense, and a flawless ensemble cast as the crew of the space freighter Nostromo, who fall prey to a vicious creature, whom I must say is the most original desiegn for an alien EVER! It had gestated inside one of the ill-fated crew members. In a star-making role, Sigourney Weaver excels as sole survivor Ripley, becoming the screen's most popular heroine in a lucrative movie franchise. To measure the film's success, one need only recall the many images that have been burned into our collective psyche, including the "facehugger," the "chestburster," and Ripley's climactic encounter with the full-grown monster. This is one of the scariest movies I've seen, and it is a must see. When the director's Cut is released, I'll be there, and so will those "I'm tough" teens. But you know they only laugh at the old ones because there parents said that they were scared by them. Watch this one alone in the dark.
Rating:
Summary: A pure classic.
Review: A masterpiece.
The set designs, the special effects, make-up, sound, costumes,
everything.
Basically it is a perfect horror film.
A definite feast for the eyes for all horror and sci-fi fans.
Not to be missed.
Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger are true treasures and wouldnt it be an awesome surprise if the were involved for Alien 5 ?
Rating:
Summary: 25 years / it still works
Review: Every generation or so, a production like this comes along. Psycho was to the sixties hidden madness as Alien was to the Eighties sci-fi horror genre. Both were triumphs, and belong in any terror aficionado's library. It's all said before - I can't add a word to the accolades. It may take another two generations before it art and craft are surpassed.
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