Bloodtype Online

    The crew of the ore hauler Nostromo is awoken early from their suspended animation because their ship has deviated from its course to investigate a mysterious alien signal.  While some of the crew is very unhappy with this course of events they are forced to investigate because of their contract to the company.  They discover that the signal is coming from a small planet and while landing the ship is damaged.  While part of the crew repairs the ship others decided to track down the signal.  What they discover is an alien ship crash-landed on the surface.  The crew of the ship is long dead, but they do discover some strange eggs on the vessel.  One of which opens up to reveal a creature, which immediately attaches itself to a member of the crew.  They bring the injured crewman back to the ship and attempt to remove the creature.  Before they can figure out a way to manage it without killing the man the creature dies and falls off of him.  Soon he is awake and none the worse for the experience, at least until the creature that was implanted in him decides to burst from his chest during supper!  After giving their friend a burial in space the crew breaks into groups to track down and kill the little creature that was responsible for the death.  Unfortunately for them the creature is much larger now and decides to start making snacks of the crew.  Additionally it seems that the company that operates the vessel may be using them to collect specimens and that a member of the crew isn’t what he appears to be. How will the crew deal with the danger and will any of them survive?   

    Where to start?  The story is a wonderful combination of a traditional horror tale with sci-fi elements added in.  Setting the film on a space ship in the middle of nowhere is incredibly effective and brings sense of isolation and claustrophobia that is unique to the movie.  Some of the younger readers who have grown up with these movies won’t realize how horrifying the face hugger and chest burster were.  The fact that the “monsters” in Alien didn’t just kill you, but violated your body like that is really creepy.  To top it all off the writers creation of the character of Ash to creates even more paranoia and unease.  Of course you can have the greatest script ever written and it means nothing without a superior cast.  I challenge anyone to find a genre movie with a better cast than the one that was assembled for Alien.  When the “weak” link of the cast is newcomer Sigorney Weaver I think that you are doing pretty damn good!  Alien also benefited by the direction of Ridley Scott.  Without his vision and direction of the movie it would have never been the classic that it is.  Not only did Scott cast the film with actors that needed minimal direction so he could concentrate on the technical aspects of the movie, but also he did much of the handheld camera work personally.  If you watch the extras you will find out that Fox doubled the budget based solely upon looking at Scott’s storyboards.  As with everything else about the movie the special effects are outstanding.  The designs done by H.R. Giger for the alien spacecraft and the creature itself are disturbing and beautiful at the same time.  Most of the practical effects were so well done that they still look very good to an audience almost 30 years after the films initial release.  There isn’t a ton of gore beyond the demise of the Kane character, but how could you really top that anyway?  To be fair the scene where Ash’s head comes off is described by director Ridley Scott as a “little dodgy” and I would have to agree.  But overall the effects are well done and the movie contains one of the best-remembered effects scenes in movie history.   

    I also wanted to talk about the extras that are available on the newest two-disc release of the DVD.  Disc one has two versions of the movie, the theatrical release and an extended director’s cut.  As a huge sci-fi/horror geek I of course had to watch both back to back.  There isn’t that much difference between the two except for a couple of scenes being restored that were cut for the theatrical release.  The only one that is obvious is the scene where Ripley finds that Dallas has been kept alive by the alien and not killed.  The second disc is filled with documentaries that chronicle the making of the film from the initial writing of the script to the release of the movie into theaters.  What really impressed me the most is that the documentaries make no effort to smooth over some of the hard feelings that those involved have with each other.  For example one of the producers of the film talks about how the script that Dan O’Bannon turned in had one good scene and that they had to rewrite it.  O’Bannon says that most of what they filmed was from his original script.  O’Bannon also has an interesting story about asking to see the dailies.  When he asked producer Gordon Carroll told him that those were privileged and he could sue him!  These are just a couple of the stories that are contained in the highly entertaining documentaries on disc two.   

    Alien is a classic movie that is a must see for all genre fans.  I highly recommend the movie.  I would also say that the extras on the new DVD are worth purchasing the movie again.  Normally I’m against “double dipping” but in this case if you are a fan of the movie you have to have the documentaries.