I first saw it on VHS in the early 80s. As a birthday treat my Dad brought the school VHS player home - a massive weighty thing it was. We then went to the video shop (a classic - sticky carpets, dense shelves of obscure wonders) and rented Alien and Dark Star. Alien scared the piss out of us and has stayed one of my favourites ever since. I’ve managed to see it in thr cinema a few times now and the darkness really does enhance the experience.
As for getting another film like it, obviously it’s really a sub-genre of its own, so anything too close is just a copy/clone.
But as for what generally makes it a classic, I’d venture (off of the top of my head) that what Ridley Scott himself says is pretty on the mark: B grade horror done like A grade film. More generally, it’s the rendering of something that’s remained “under-produced” and exclusive to a sub-culture into a higher-production and dramatically serious and high-caliber form.
If that’s part of it, then it’s interesting to ask what other films have done that. Suggestions, off the top of my head:
The Matrix comes immediately to mind (anime, cyberpunk, hong-kong martial arts films done as a Hollywood blockbuster).
2001 A Space Odyssey probably counts (I’m not really sure how Sci-Fi was viewed before 1968).
Lord of the Rings (high fantasy, though I wonder if Star Wars is the real predecessor of this?)
Comic book movies probably count to some extent here (Burton’s Batman, Nolan’s Batman and the first Iron Man?), but I’m loathe to include them because I think they’re all kinda derivative of the above, with Burton’s Batman probably being an exception but also not so much of a perfection of content and form that Alien and the above were.
You’re thinking too much about modern films. Alien builds on classic suspense murder movies like Alfred Hitchcock. The suspense and dread is worse than the actual killing. In Psycho they don’t even show a knife stabbing anyone.
And the Space Jockey, Alien design and chestburster aren’t part of it? Cuz we are certainly shown the chestburster and definitely see the Alien!
In suggesting “modern films” for the idea of “films making niche things dramatic, serious and mainstream” … they were just the suggestions off of the top my head.
I first saw it on VHS in the early 80s. As a birthday treat my Dad brought the school VHS player home - a massive weighty thing it was. We then went to the video shop (a classic - sticky carpets, dense shelves of obscure wonders) and rented Alien and Dark Star. Alien scared the piss out of us and has stayed one of my favourites ever since. I’ve managed to see it in thr cinema a few times now and the darkness really does enhance the experience.
yep, it truly is a classic.
As for getting another film like it, obviously it’s really a sub-genre of its own, so anything too close is just a copy/clone.
But as for what generally makes it a classic, I’d venture (off of the top of my head) that what Ridley Scott himself says is pretty on the mark: B grade horror done like A grade film. More generally, it’s the rendering of something that’s remained “under-produced” and exclusive to a sub-culture into a higher-production and dramatically serious and high-caliber form.
If that’s part of it, then it’s interesting to ask what other films have done that. Suggestions, off the top of my head:
You’re thinking too much about modern films. Alien builds on classic suspense murder movies like Alfred Hitchcock. The suspense and dread is worse than the actual killing. In Psycho they don’t even show a knife stabbing anyone.
And the Space Jockey, Alien design and chestburster aren’t part of it? Cuz we are certainly shown the chestburster and definitely see the Alien!
In suggesting “modern films” for the idea of “films making niche things dramatic, serious and mainstream” … they were just the suggestions off of the top my head.