The 3rd review!
I was walking around Family Video with Paranormal Activity 2 in my hands looking for a dollar movie to get along with it. Luckily Family Video had a small rack that was designated as the "Halloween Section" (very eh in the selection though) but one movie jumped out at me simply because I spent so much time arguing with Scott and Coach about the titular monster from this series. Yes, I am talking about...
Alien (1979).
Much like Child's Play everyone knows who/what the Alien is, as it spawned off a bunch of sequels and eventually a crossover series with the clearly-superior-in-every-way Predator. I was pretty exhausted when I watched this due to my day being pretty busy today with the BCSN in Findlay, editing my show, then squeezing in some time to play Dead Island with Taylor. So I was watching this more as an obligation as opposed to be in the right mood, so I'm a little unfairly critical, but here were some of my thoughts on this movie...
For it coming out in '79, you can't really tell because the movie does look really good. I know, I know, Ridley Scott made it so it's going to look good, but still it's worth noting. Most of the characters are given little to no depth or development so you know there is purpose is merely alien fodder and you don't really feel anything for most of the characters when they get killed. The exceptions being the last two to die, you are upset that the black guy dies (even though it was expected) because the cliche "helpless woman who freezes" causes him to get killed. Then you are filled with a sort of satisfaction when the alien turns his sights on her (or maybe that was just me).
I swear it seemed like they spent a whole lot of time getting really close up shots of Sigourney Weaver from every different angle, at the end she dons a space helmet so you can get a different look for another closeup. Something else that bothered me was there were too many "cat scares." That is when, as Jake Kohne, or Kohne-Head as he prefers to be called, is when they're building up the tension in a scene because you know the monster is nearby but instead a cat jumps across the screen and screeches loudly. It's fine once in awhile, but when you have the same scare in the same scene, with the same character, it's kind of silly. I'm not exaggerating either, the same guy has that happen to him about 5 minutes apart.
Yes I'm nit picking, but I did enjoy the movie, not as much as I did my previous two, but it was good, especially for the time it came out. Also interesting to check out, the Alien creature is taken from the works of artist H.R. (Home Run) Giger, and if you ever want to see some disturbing shit, do a google search on some of the stuff this guy painted. Guy suffers from night terrors and a lot of his paintings deal with things he dreams about. Yeah.
After seeing this film, there is no way the Alien could ever take the Predator, impossible. Angry Man had a very convincing set of reasons that I would like to share with you. For one, Sigourney Weaver routinely clowns the Alien while Arnold Schwarzenegger was unable to kill the Predator. If Arnold can't kill something, there is no way the Alien could. "But what about Danny Glover LOL!!!!111!!!!1ONE!!!!11" He had that part covered too, it was one of these situations (or multiple) A) It was a baby, or female Predator B) It was Arnold in a Danny Glover suit or C) It was Norton in a Predator suit.
To sum up my thoughts, good movie and I'd give it...