Alien

When you hunt a tiger in the daytime with a gun in your hand, you have at least some hope of success. But if you take away the light, end up dumped in the middle of the jungle in the dark of night, surrounded by the unknown, and all your primal fears will return. The tiger has the advantage here. It has become a family legend how my mom almost gave birth to me prematurely due to attending a screening of Alien in the Alpha Cinema (the whole story is made much richer and different with every retelling, so I will not elaborate on it here). You must admit that you’ve just got to love this movie, especially since after all these years, it is still the most impressive example of its genre. (10/02/2007)

Ridley Scott cannot be denied his directorial skill and sense for a unique creepy atmosphere, but after so many years, it doesn't have quite the same level of horror as it did ten or twenty years ago. The original screenplay, the great cast, and the excellent direction, along with the depressive music and fantastic devilish atmosphere, are all positives, But I still give preference to the militant Cameron. (01/11/2003)

The collective terror of the unknown in an isolated environment. The first serious sci-fi/horror movie with a blood-thirsty space monster…and the most artful one to achieve cult status. Unlike Cameron’s follow-up, Aliens, Ridley Scott’s Alien modestly, or even intimately, presents the creature in a gradual way, exploiting the mysteriousness and menace of the perfect, indestructible extraterrestrial organism at the top of the food chain, towering above everything that we know from Earth. The close-ups of the scared-to-death, realistically natural and poorly armed crew members, the visual exploration of the futuristically elegant and industrial bowels of their spaceship Nostromo, the creepy atmospheric music by the unrivalled sorcerer Jerry Goldsmith, and primarily H.R. Giger’s brilliant design of not only the monsters themselves make Alien a unique classic of the genre. It is an establisher of trends and a source of inspiration in which, even after forty years, it’s impossible to find a cliché or guess who will survive. (18/08/2024)

A classic that nowadays affects me more with its perfect visual design by R.H. Geiger, rather than a haunting impression, as during the first watch. Yet it is impossible to admire R. Scott's skill in inducing an atmosphere of danger and working with the "established" horror techniques that have become the quintessence of modern science fiction horror filmmaking under his guidance. (27/01/2004)

When a movie manages to frighten you to death even thirty years after its release, you must admit it’s good. And all you need to do is to show nothing, keep everything hidden and flash lights in the viewers’ faces and they will be terrified. If it weren’t for James Cameron, Ridley Scott would be the uncrowned king of the Alien saga. (25/11/2007)