Alien

The film that started it all!  ’Alien’ hit theatres in 1979 and scared audiences around the world. The mystery and suspense that ‘Alien’ brought to the big screen has yet to be matched. ‘Alien’  brought such horror and creativity, that it influenced an entire generation of gamers and film makers to use a lot of the ideas created in ‘Alien’ for their own works.

With Ridley Scott directing the film, and H.R. Giger designing the creatures and landscapes, it’s easy to see why ‘Alien’ became so famous and so well-respected.

The film takes place in space for the majority of the time, with the opening scene depicting the space vessel ‘Nostromo’ picking up a distress signal from an unsurveyed world named LV-426. The crew are awakened from hyper sleep to investigate the signal. Upon landing on LV-426, they come in contact with an Alien space vessel which seemed to have crash-landed on the planet’s surface. The crew then enter the vessel through an opening in the side of the ship. When inside, they find themselves in a large chamber, with some kind of creature sitting in a chair-like telescope, dead. The creature was named ‘Space Jockey’ on set and the Jockey seemed to have been there for a long time. When the crew investigate it further, they find the Jockey had a strange injury near its chest cavity; which was assumed to be the cause of death.

After discovering the Space Jockey, the rest of the crew further explore inside the massive ship. They find another large chamber, containing what appear to be eggs. Kane goes down to investigate the eggs thinking they’re harmless since they would have been lying there, dormant, for eons. But, to Kane’s surprise and horror, one egg opens as he steps too close and a crab-like parasite springs forward onto Kane’s face, melting through his helmet and latching itself onto his face.

When they bring Kane back on board the Nostromo for medical attention, they find that the parasite is keeping Kane alive, but in a comatose state. Moments later, the parasite dies and all seems fine until the crew settles down for a meal. Kane begins to have a seizure and, in a bloody burst, his ribcage explodes outwards as this Alien creature (known as the ‘Chestburster’) emerges from his chest cavity and runs off. From then on it grows and feeds on the crew, wiping them out; except for one –  Lt. Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) – who must escape the Alien before she meets the same fate as her crewmates…