#82 and #83: Alien vs. Aliens

Alien
Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Dan O'Bannon and Donald Shusett
Released May 25, 1979

Aliens
Directed by James Cameron
Written by James Cameron, David Giler and Walter Hill
Released July 18, 1986


I'm not sure if it was Friday, July 19th or Saturday, July 20th, but I remember vividly that weekend of my 10th year because that was the weekend my mother took me to see James Cameron's Aliens, one of the scariest, most fun movie experiences I would ever have in my life. Since that night, spent packed in the dark with a theater full of flinching, screaming movie fans, the insanely successful sequel to Alien has been my litmus test for whether a horror or action movie (Aliens is the perfect example of both) works.

I've never been a part of a more rapt or enthusiastic audience. I can still remember my mother jumping in her seat and digging into my arm with her fingernails, as I sat there thinking, "This is AWESOME." You know when movie critics or reviewers refer to a popcorn flick as a "thrill ride"? Aliens is, without exaggeration, like a ride. If you never got the chance to see it in a movie theater, you really missed out.

But, before I rave any more about the sequel, I suppose I should cover the original Alien, directed by Ridley Scott. While both of these films are probably considered Sci-Fi pictures, they really fit more aptly into two other genre molds: namely Action (Aliens) and Horror (Alien). More specifically, Scott's picture is like a slasher movie in the vein of Halloween, but set in space, where the killer is not a man but a deadly alien being. It's Psycho by way of Jaws.

In Alien, the crew of a mining ship, commanded by Tom Skerritt as Dallas, intercepts what they think is a signal from a distant planet requesting help. Against the protests of some of the crew members, they visit the planet and examine the signal, only to stumble upon a giant nest of eggs. Crew member Kane (John Hurt) examines too closely and is attacked by a creature from one of the eggs, which attaches itself to his face.

Kane is brought back to the ship with the "facehugger" still attached, and his eventual recovery from his infestation is one of the most wicked, shocking scenes in cinema. You'd have to have lived under a rock to not know what happens to him, but I will avoid spoilers just in case. Just know that in that moment, a killer is born, disappearing into the bowels of the ship before anyone in the room knows what they're dealing with.

From here, Alien becomes the slasher movie I mentioned before, with a few technological twists (like a frantically paced scene involving Dallas and a motion detector) that breathe life into the genre. It's a perfect movie.

What's more astonishing is that Cameron's sequel is just as good (if not better). It's faithful to the source material while still managing to be an entirely different "beast" that moves at a much faster pace. Rather than dealing with a single alien sneaking around in the nooks of a ship, we're dealing with an army of them.

Over 57 years have passed since the events of the first film, and Ripley is awoken from her malfunctioning sleep pod to find her world completely changed, her family dead, and the company she worked for putting her up on charges of conspiracy about the happenings on her former ship. She is stripped of her pilot's licence and essentially fired, until the company discovers they may need her help: it seems they've since inhabited the planet infested with alien eggs in the first film, and they've now lost contact with the colonists inhabiting it.

While Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley was one of the few surviving protagonists of the first film, she becomes one of the greatest female lead characters in film history in Aliens. I can't put it any better than how the late, great David Foster Wallace put it years ago in an essay he wrote about how Hollywood, after the success of Cameron's Terminator 2, had become obsessed with special effects over substance. In that essay, he praised Aliens, and more specifically the work of Weaver, by writing:

"It is a complete mystery why feminist film scholars haven't paid more attention to Cameron and his early collaborator Gale Ann Hurd. "The Terminator" and "Aliens" were both violent action films with tough, competent female protagonists (incredibly rare) whose toughness and competence in no way diminish their "femininity" (even more rare, unheard of), a femininity that is rooted (along with both films' thematics) in notions of maternity rather than just sexuality. For example, compare Cameron's Ellen Ripley with the panty-and-tank-top Ripley of Scott's "Alien." In fact it was flat-out criminal that Sigourney Weaver didn't win the '86 Oscar for her lead in Cameron's "Aliens." Marlee Matlin indeed. No male lead in the history of U.S. action films even approaches Weaver's second Ripley for emotional depth and sheer balls -- she makes Stallone, Willis, et. al. look muddled and ill."

Weaver is joined by a supporting cast that features actors like Paul Reiser, Michael Biehn, and a hilarious, scene stealing Bill Paxton, all doing some of the best work they've ever filmed. It doesn't hurt that they're working from a great script that fluctuates from funny to dark to intelligent. The special effects are top notch (though some of the miniature work is kind of obvious), especially the introduction of the gigantic, menacing alien queen. The music is propulsive and thundering, and the sound effects work is astounding; this movie will tear your home theater system up.

The version of Aliens that I own is the extended cut, with 17 minutes not in the theatrical version, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it over the shorter cut. For first time viewers, the material in the extended cut isn't really that vital. Either way, you're probably going to have a blast. Just try to assemble the biggest group of virgin viewers you can, cut the lights and crank up the volume.

Trivia note: apparently, only six alien suits were made for Aliens. This will really blow you away once you've seen the movie, because clever editing makes it appear that there are dozens in various scenes. Check out the IMDB trivia pages for both movies for tons of other interesting tidbits.


For more on Alien:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.

For more on Aliens:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the Alien Quadrilogy Box Set. You don't really need Alien 3, and you definitely don't need Alien: Resurrection, but it's a great deal for a whole lotta movie.

The completely freaky, narration-free Alien trailer:


The Aliens trailer:

#81: The Descent

The Descent
Written and Directed by Neil Marshall
Released August 4, 2006


If it had just been a film about rock climbing and spelunking, The Descent would have done suitably well as a suspenseful action movie. For pretty much the first hour of the film, that's what we're dealing with, and writer/director Neil Marshall does a fantastic job of creating a tense, unsettling atmosphere in a setting (dark, twisting caves) that couldn't have been easy in which to film or recreate (apparently, may of the realistic sets were polystyrene models).

The film begins with a tragic accident that happens after a group of friends goes rafting, leaving Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) mourning the loss of her husband and daughter. The credits roll, and then we rejoin this group of 6 women one year later, as they prepare a cave exploring trip in attempt to help the friend get back to her former self.

The fact that their trip takes place in the Appalachian wilderness is just the first of a handful of nods to Deliverance, though Marshall wisely stops short of showing condescending scenes of inbred locals trying to impose a sense of dread. Instead, he wisely sets up subtle scenes that show the kind of tough, adventurous women we're following, like showing how curious - rather than grossed out - they are by the corpse of an elk.

Things become complicated once the group begins their expedition, primarily because of the deception of Juno (Natalie Mendoza) in leading them to a cave not on their map. The eventual reveal that the women have bigger fish to fry, namely a group of bat-like humans called "crawlers", filmed through an infrared camera by one of the characters, is incredibly effective and frightening. Suddenly, this Deliverance homage gets a big taste of Aliens thrown into the mix, and the suspense movie breaks out into a full fledged, gore filled horror movie.

While everything from the performances to the bursts of violence help build the horror, one of the most effective aspects of creating and sustaining tension is the use of lighting. Marshall makes the wise choice of making it look like the only sources of light in the picture are the sources the climbers are carrying with them. The fact that there is so much surrounding darkness in many of the scenes adds to the feeling of claustrophobia and impending danger.

I remember reading reviews when The Descent was first released that made great mention of the fact that the cast was largely female. I guess that could be important to note, but maybe more because of the fact that the actors and their characters are so tough that their sexuality becomes irrelevant. If anything, Marshall's film is remarkable for not being about a group of women who love to get together, drink cosmos and talk about shopping, and it works so well that it proves that you don't need a big breasted female "superhero" like Lara Croft to sell a movie about women who get dirty, take action and kick ass.


For more on The Descent:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The official movie site
- Buy the DVD.


The official trailer for The Descent:

#80: Dagon

Dagon
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Written by Dennis Paoli (based on H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth")
Released October 31, 2001


A movie based on the works of horror/sci-fi legend H.P. Lovecraft, about a town full of violent fish people who run around like zombies and want to feed on or sacrifice humans... directed by Stuart Gordon, director of Re-Animator?

Okay, Dagon, you have my attention.

In Dagon, two annoying wealthy couples crash their yacht onto a pile of rocks after a storm overtakes them. With one wife pinned between the ship and the rocks, the other couple (Paul and Barbara, if you must know their names) takes the inflatable raft to the seemingly abandoned nearby seaside village of Imboca. It doesn't take long for things to turn strange.

Paul is soon separated from his wife, and then discovers that there is a curse over the people of Imboca. After fighting off attackers with tentacles and fish gills on their necks, Paul stumbles into the town drunk - and the only person seemingly untouched by the curse - who informs him about Imboca's sordid past. It seems that, decades before, Imboca was a small but prosperous fishing community who fell on bad times. An evil fishing captain stormed the town church and told the townsfolk about a god named Dagon who would bring them all gold.

The citizens of Imboca collectively agree to reject their Christian god and tear the church apart. The evil captain, who murders the head priest with a sledgehammer, becomes the new Head Brother in Charge.

Paul is, of course, unconvinced of the drunk's story until he encounters a few dozen fish folk, a few human skinnings and a man with octopus arms who gives him a near fatal swirlie in a toilet that looks like it came right out of that scene in Trainspotting.

Will Paul be able to save his wife before she gets sacrificed to the fish god Dagon and knocked up with his tentacle baby? Will he become one of fish heads? Will he wind up married to the hottie vampire fish lady he sees in his dreams? What the fuck am I even talking about?

For a pretty low budget B-horror flick, Dagon isn't too bad. It looks and plays like something a step above what might appear as a Sci-Fi Channel original movie, with decent gore but some pretty bad digital effects. Story-wise it's a bit like a mixture of Night of the Living Dead meets... I don't know... maybe, in a very twisted way, Finding Nemo.

For the horror junkies out there, it's probably worth checking out if you think you've seen everything at this point. I wouldn't, however, recommend it to those folks who are extremely picky about their scary movies.


For more on Dagon:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- A bit on the fish-god history of Dagon, and the alternate "versions" of the same god. Or, here's some more info at Bible History.
- The movie's official site
- Buy the DVD.


The Dagon trailer:

#79: Vampyr

Vampyr
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Written by Christen Jul and Carl Theodor Dreyer (based on the novel In a Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan Le Fanu)
Released May 6, 1932


All of the atmosphere and mood that I had read was supposed to be in spades in Don't Look Now can actually be found in this creepy black and white near-silent picture from 1932.

There's no question that Vampyr, with its incredible use of shadows and moving/panning camera techniques, had an incredibly influential impact on the way horror films have been made since its release. If someone told you that this was actually a long lost David Lynch movie, I could see where you might believe them.

The story of Vampyr is relatively simple: a young traveler named Allan Grey (played with Keanu Reeves-esque numbness by financial backer and producer Julian West) lodges in a Gothic mansion and is soon intrigued by the strange sounds and visions he sees. One night, the keeper of the lodge enters his room, mysteriously declaring "She must not die!" and leaving behind a small package on which he writes, "To be opened after my death."

Grey begins following a series of strange visions: shadows of people that move and act independently of their "owners." Grey witnesses the murder of the old man and discovers the package to be a book about vampires.

Here, the film basically takes off into an extended collection of dreamlike (or nightmarish) images that are just as - if not more than - important to the effect of the movie than the story being told. For a movie this old to have so many unforgettable images is nothing short of impressive. There's a particular extended sequence of a major character's entombment and burial that will stay with me for weeks.

It's a damn shame, then, that Vampyr was a critical failure that resulted in director Carl Theodor Dreyer not being able to make another film for a decade. His work here is easily as groundbreaking and influential as a movie like Citizen Kane would come to be.

If you do wind up renting Vampyr, try not to be too alarmed by the look of the film. In addition to the obvious unavoidable aging that happens with a movie over 75 years old, Dreyer intentionally used a washed-out look to add to the surreal, dreamlike mood. Since the film was originally conceived as a silent movie, there is very little dialogue, and what does exist is muffled and faint, which strangely adds to the proceedings.

As for the scratchiness of many of the scenes, I didn't get the Criterion version of the DVD from Netflix, so I'm unsure of how much they cleaned up in their release. If this kind of stuff is distracting to you, you're not going to enjoy the time spent watching Vampyr. For me, it worked in the same way that the hissing and crackling of old vinyl records sometimes - hell, most of the time - make the music sound that much better, that much more lived-in and real.


For more on Vampyr:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the Criterion DVD. Let me know how it looks.


An excerpt, the first 4 minutes, from Vampyr:

#78: Don't Look Now

Don't Look Now
Directed by Nicolas Roeg
Written by Alan Scott and Chris Byrant (story by Daphne Du Maurier)
Released January 1974

As Don't Look Now opens, John and Laura Baxter (played by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) are in no danger of winning any Parent of the Year awards. As these two lounge around their country home, enjoying a few afternoon cocktails and ignoring the dirty dishes, their son and daughter are out playing in their massive yard, their son playing with broken glass while their daughter attempts to retrieve her ball from the pond.

John spills a drink on one of his photos and gets a sort of premonition that sends him running to check on his children, but he is too late. He pulls his daughter from the pond, screaming to the skies as they both collapse into the mud. The next thing we the audience know, John and Laura are in Venice (John is hard at work restoring an old church), their son left behind at school. Laura meets two strange sisters, one of whom is blind and psychic. She tells Laura that she can see her daughter, and tells her that she is happy.

Then, the true horror begins: an extended backside nude scene from Sutherland, which segues into an almost too-long sex scene. Roeg thankfully intersplices some nudity from the beautiful Christie, but the damage is done. The incredibly lame, flute-laden soundtrack is so 70s, it's almost laughable.

John is none too happy about the psychic mumbo jumbo, but he allows his wife to pursue it, since she seems happy to finally be able to discuss her daughter's death. John, of course, forgets move rule #456: always heed the words of crazy old lady psychics... especially if they're blind. Soon, John starts having his own visions and begins chasing through the narrow pathways of Venice what appears to be a little girl in a red raincoat (which is what his daughter was wearing the day she drowned).

I have seen Don't Look Now mentioned among the best "horror" and suspense movies, but after watching it, I'd say it barely fits the mold of a horror film. While there is admittedly some suspense, creepiness and a touch of the supernatural, Roeg directs the movie more like a drama. Things don't start to get truly weird until about the last twenty minutes, but there's a nice shocker of an ending waiting for you.

It's not that I wouldn't recommend this movie, but if you tried to have a "Scary Movie Night" and invited some friends, I think more than a few would wonder about your definition of the word "scary."


For more on Don't Look Now:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.


The Don't Look Now trailer, which is WAY more creepy than the movie:

#77: Cube

Cube
Directed by Vincenzo Natali
Written by André Bijelic, Vincenzo Natali and Graeme Manson
Released September 9, 1997


A room full of strangers who have no idea how or why they got to the place they find themselves imprisoned. A series of deadly booby traps set by an unknown person, forcing these strangers to make life and death decisions based on a series of clues, all while trying not to kill each other in the process.

If anyone out there is thinking, "Hey, this sounds a lot like Saw," you'd be right... if Cube hadn't come out about 7 years prior. Cube, and the viewing audience, also benefits from not relying on the disgusting, sadistic impulses of torture porn. Instead, it is a sort of Science Fiction puzzle game.

Going into too much detail about anything (Who put these people here? Why?) will ruin the way the story moves along. All you really need to know is that this group of people -- which includes among them a doctor, a mathematician, a cop and an engineer -- is trapped in a collection of rooms, all the same size but with different color schemes, which may or may not kill them when they enter.

The entire movie is essentially a gimmick, albeit an interesting and engrossing one. The fact that the entire movie takes place in tiny rooms (there was actually only one cube room made, with different color panels) and never gets tedious is a credit to the filmmakers, and to the concept.

The acting, at times, is the real mystery here. While the cast is full of unknowns, you may recognize Nicole de Boer from a few Kids in the Hall skits, and from their movie Brain Candy. She gives one of the better performances, but her serviceable acting is seemingly amplified by the overbaked acting of Nicky Guadagni as the doctor and especially Maurice Dean Wint as the cop. The script gets a little silly at points as well, but the strong concept behind the movie still holds things together.

For a movie with a rumored budget of only $300,000, director Vinceno Natali squeezes all he can out of the resources he has (that opening scene had to have cost a third of his budget). Cube was followed by a sequel and a prequel, but I'm not sure if I'm interested in knowing more about the story; it's the vagueness and the questions that go unanswered that keep it interesting in the first place.

For more on Cube:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.


The Cube trailer:

#76: The Haunting

The Haunting
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Nelson Gidding (based on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House)
Released September 18, 1963


October is one of my favorite months, for two main reasons: Fall, and more importantly, Halloween.

Sure, when I was a kid, it was all about wearing costumes and grabbing that candy. The more important things for me, even then, were the scary movies. Most of my best costumes were based on movies I loved. One year, I was The Terminator, and another year saw me as a horribly disfigured soldier from Aliens, with bloody, blistered face makeup and a monster bursting out of my chest (since no real Aliens toys existed, I had to duct tape the Rancor Pit monster from Return of the Jedi to my body). Probably my favorite costume of all time, and the only one I repeated a few years later, was Robert DeNiro's greased up and tattooed Max Cady from Cape Fear.

I love "scary" movies, whether they fall under the genres of Science Fiction, Horror or Suspense. As far as I'm concerned, when they are done well, they can be the best pictures ever made (see The Shining, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the aforementioned Aliens/Alien for a few perfect examples). Of course, when executed poorly, they can also be the most disappointing and unbearable of all movies.

This October, I'm going to try my damndest to cover nothing but scary movies, and primarily movies I've never seen before. Since there always tends to be the occasional Netflix delivery gap, I may pepper this month with a few of my favorites. Hopefully, those of you who don't consider yourselves fan of these kinds of movies might be swayed by a few of my picks.

While it's only September 30th, I'm getting an early start tonight with The Haunting, one of the all time fright classics that I've never seen. I did manage to take in the lamentable 1999 re-make that starred Owen Wilson, Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta Jones, and that was probably what scared me off of seeing the original. Aside from some hammy, embarrassing acting (Owen Wilson is not the only guilty party there), the movie was pretty much ruined by its reliance on computer generated special effects. I'm sorry, but knowing an actor is reacting to a green screen just tends to suck the tension right out of a scene.

There was none of that nonsense to be had in 1963, when The Haunting first reached moviegoers. Miraculously, this ghost story sheds not a single drop of blood in its running time, and relies heavily on the use of music, shadow and some clever camerawork to drum up most of its scares.

Director Robert Wise (I previously praised his work on The Day the Earth Stood Still) sets the tone early by showing us the history of Hill House and the lives that had been mysteriously taken within its walls. He then brings us to present day, where our narrator, Richard Johnson as Dr. John Markway, is attempting to rent the house for use in a paranormal research investigation. Markway is attempting to prove the existence of ghosts, and assembles a team that includes Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn), one of the potential heirs to the abandoned house, and Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris) and a woman named Theodora (Claire Bloom).

It doesn't take long for the house (if that's what is causing all of the commotion) to make its preference for Eleanor known. Eleanor, in turn, grows subconsciously fond of the attention, as we learn that she has spent the majority of her life looking after her sick and unhappy mother. Eleanor loves the attention so much that she claims to never want to leave. Is she the reason behind the strange incidents in the house? Is Dr. Markway playing tricks on his volunteers to observe their reactions? Just where is this lesbian subplot between Theo and Eleanor leading?

The Haunting may be a little slow by today's standards, but if you're the kind of patient viewer who can appreciate the slow building of tension, the movie definitely earns its classic reputation. I highly recommend watching this one late at night with the volume up loud. Without the sound, Humphrey Searle's ever present but constantly changing music combined with the eerie sound effects from Desmond Briscoe and the film's sound department, The Haunting just wouldn't work.

The blood and gore lovers will definitely be disappointed, but for those who long for "the good old days" of movie making, this is a great example of the belief that sometimes you don't need the bells and whistles of technology to get under the skin of an audience.


For more on The Haunting:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.


The trailer for The Haunting: