(1) SF: ALIEN

(1979-1986: ALIEN / ALIENS 1-2. That’s right – I mostly just count the first two films. Mostly)

 

Whereas Terminator is the definitive robot war franchise, Alien is the definitive, well, alien franchise – the direct descendant of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

As I said in my previous entry, the heart of SF is still all Martians and Morlocks to me (or evolution and entropy, those recurring themes in Wells). We’ve looked at the machine Morlocks of the Terminator (and the Matrix) – the aliens in the Alien franchise are Martians. Not literally Martians of course, unlike the original Martians in The War of the Worlds, but still the sharp edge of evolution (Wells’ penultimate true villain), red in tooth and claw, pitted against humanity in the backdrop of cold, dead space (or Wells’ ultimate true villain of entropy).

And holy crap – the Martians are positively cuddly compared to their cinematic descendant aliens, or xenomorphs, in the Alien franchise! Sure, the original Martians may have been space vampires, sucking down human blood, but the Alien xenomorphs take it to a whole new level of body horror, with every possible bodily fluid and organ of Freudian subtext thrown in for kicks. Whereas the original Martians invaded our world, the xenomorphs invade our very bodies – in the most face-hugging, throat-thrusting, chest-bursting way possible.

Like the original Terminator, the original Alien was at its core a horror film – the body horror of the alien itself in the claustrophobic intensity of a spaceship – and subject to a similar law of diminishing returns with each sequel away from its horror origins, although the intensity of action compensated for it in the immediate sequel.

 

HORROR

 

As I just said, the original Alien was at its core a horror film, arguably the SF horror film, and although the franchise moves away from that at times, it always retains some element of that SF horror, combining body and cosmic horror. Like The Thing, it’s another film that solves the haunted house problem but does The Thing one better by having the haunted house IN SPACE! Although, really, the xenomorph more resembles your classic slasher than your average ghost.

 

SF OR FANTASY

 

Pretty much pure SF – although some aspects of the xenomorph biology verge on fantasy. Acid blood, anyone? It would be interesting to see a magic xenomorph in a fantasy setting.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT ALIEN-TIER?)