Throwback Thursday: ‘Alien’ (1979)

The latest release of Alien: Covenant (2017) is out tomorrow (May 19) and so for today’s throwback Thursday, we had to take it back to the original film that started it all, Alien, which was released in 1979. It is not just a sci-fi movie about aliens, rather, it is a thriller classic that is filled with suspense, terror, and great effects.

The movie was directed by Ridley Scott and starred Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley and Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas. The cast also includes Veronica Cartwright (Lambert), Harry Dean Stanton (Brett), John Hurt (Kane), Ian Holm (Ash), and Yaphet Kotto (Parker) who were all part of the crew of the spaceship, Nostromo.

The ship was headed back to Earth, when they received a distress signal from an alien spacecraft. The crew investigated the alien aircraft and in their exploration, they discovered the remains of the ship’s alien crew and pilot. Upon further examination, they discovered thousands of egg-like objects. One of them hatched and a weird, spider-like, creature (facehugger) came crawling out. The creature then flung itself onto the face of Kane and knocked him out.

20th Century Fox: Robert Penn

The rest of the crew decided, against regulations, to bring Kane back to their ship and they attempted to get the alien creature off his face. However, the creature seemed to detach from him on its own and then died, leaving him seemingly alive and well.

One of the most gnarly scenes that made this movie was when the crew were having their last dinner before departing back on course and they got an unexpected visit.  The crew had been enjoying a nice meal when Kane began to convulse uncontrollably.  All of a sudden a tiny creature ripped through his chest and escaped into the ship.

The members of the crew quickly realized that they were dealing with something that was far more dangerous than they had anticipated.  Trying to capture the creature became even more difficult since it grew into a terrifying adult beast. One by one, the crew members perished leaving only Ripley, who narrowly escaped on a small shuttle.

The success of Alien spawned subsequent sequels which includes Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien: Resurrection (1997). Fifteen years later a prequel, Prometheus (2012), was released which tells the story of scientists and their discovery from almost thirty years prior to when the events of the Alien film took place. The movie’s lethal killer, the Xenomorph, also made appearances in the crossover films Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007).

Check out the trailer from the original Alien movie below!

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ3qKyPxCP0 [/embedyt]

Alien: Covenant is in theaters Friday, May 19.