I have no idea how this is possible, but up until now, I’d managed to go my entire life without ever having seen this movie. It’s not that I purposely avoided it, but I’m not a huge extraterrestrial/space movie person–I suppose I just never got around to it. Suffice it to say that I’m glad I finally did.
Y’all, Alien has 8.5 stars on IMDb, and it earns every single one of them. Do you know what else has 8.5 stars on IMDb? Casablanca. Citizen Kane. Sunset Boulevard. We’re talking some of the most famous, beloved movies of all time. It is unequivocally a classic, and I’d go so far as to say that it deserves to be seen by everyone. If, like me, you’ve been lazy about renting it thus far: Go do it. Right now. I’ll wait.
Alien centers around a 7-person crew aboard the space merchant vessel, Nostromo. At the film’s opening, the crew is prematurely awakened from cryo-sleep when the vessel responds to an unknown transmission from a nearby moon. The transmission is automatically perceived as a distress call, and despite some dissension within the ranks about the proper protocol, Nostromo lands on the moon to investigate and lend aid. During exploration of the moon’s surface, the team encounters a nest of mysterious alien eggs, one of which spontaneously bursts open. The life-form within the burst egg proceeds to penetrate crewman Kane’s helmet, and attaches itself to his face…shudder.
Ellen Ripley, warrant officer of the Nostromo, is deeply concerned about bringing Kane back aboard the spacecraft in his current, compromised state, but the crew defy her orders and bring him aboard anyway (alien still attached to his face and all). After a brief comatose period, Kane ultimately awakens and the creature is nowhere to be found–much to the crew’s dismay. They eventually find the body of the crab-like alien, believing it dead; what they don’t realize, however, is that its life cycle has only just begun.
This movie is just fantastic. The practical effects are amazing, as is the acting from all parties involved. This was Sigourney Weaver’s first leading role, and it’s easy to see why it catapulted her into stardom. Not only did it bring Weaver personal acclaim, but her portrayal of Ripley challenged traditional gender roles in both science fiction and horror genres for years to come. Ripley is not a slinky seductress or a boring do-nothing; she doesn’t wear spandex or makeup, and she doesn’t die immediately following a sexy interlude with her hardier male co-star. In fact, she doesn’t even HAVE any sexy interludes in this movie. It’s not what she’s about. Unlike so many other leading ladies of Sci-fi and horror, she’s not defined by the man she’s helping–she is her own boss, damnit, and she gets things done. Ripley isn’t a simpering yes-woman, and at times she can be rude and abrasive. But, more importantly, she’s a PERSON: a real one. I love when movies give us leads who are flawed as well as heroic; it just rings truer for me. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the American Film Institute named Ripley the 8th greatest hero of all time. Her character feels authentic, and I stand in awe of that even after the movie is over.
As I said before: if you haven’t already seen this film, please, please seek it out. It’s heart-pounding suspense at its best, and I was quite literally on the edge of my seat for the entire second half of the movie (not to mention the goosebumps that refused to recede into my flesh until the credits finished rolling). You can find it on Netflix DVD and Amazon Video, and you will absolutely not be sorry. If nothing else, you’ll feel a little more a part of pop culture, and you’ll finally get about a zillion subsequent TV and movie references. Who can put a price on that?
Tomorrow, join me again as I review Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic, The Shining. I have a feeling many of you have already seen this one, so be sure to come back and see if our thoughts line up on Day 19, as well as the rest of our 31 Days of Horror!!
The post Day 18: Alien (1979) first appeared on It's Just Awesome DOT com.]]>It’s a modern-day take on the tale of Hansel and Gretel, and Shelley Winters stars as the titular Auntie Roo. Man, poor Shelley Winters. Despite a colorful, decades-long career and numerous Oscar nominations/wins, she never seems to get to play somebody whom you actually like. To me, Winters will forever be the frumpy sad-sack, Alice Tripp, getting kinda-sorta-deservingly drowned by Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun. Terrible, I know, but the lady does odious, second-string broads pretty darn well. She plays a kooky weirdo yet again in Auntie Roo, although I will say that she’s much more palatable than usual here.
Something I found very interesting about the role of Rosie Forrest (aka Auntie Roo) in this movie is that she doesn’t quite fit the typical mold for Hag Horror. Yes, Ms. Winters is a formerly glamorous starlet who has been relegated to the Hollywood B Team for the unthinkable crime of aging (although she’s still not very old here, just a bit less physically fabulous), BUT the categorization of the “hags” in these films usually tilts one of two ways: A. The Predatory Older Woman, or B. The Older Woman in Peril. Sometimes, both categories will be filled in the same movie (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte), but such an occurrence is rare. Anyway, in Auntie Roo, the character of Mrs. Forrest does not really fall in either camp. She never actually intends the children any harm–they just THINK she does. Granted, she has some severe mental hangups about the death of her daughter that she absolutely needs to seek therapy for. But as far as being a Predatory Older Woman…I don’t think so.
Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself again. Synopsis time!
Every year, the widowed Mrs. Rosie Forrest hosts a lavish, lovely Christmas party at her mansion for a select group of neighborhood orphans. This particular year, a sweet and sandy-haired brother and sister (Christopher and Katy Coombs) tag along to the party, despite not being selected by their chilly headmistress to attend. Mrs. Forrest, however, is delighted by their courtly manners and innocent presence. She urges them to stay, and to call her “Auntie Roo”. She even ends up taking a particular shine to Katy, who reminds her of her own deceased daughter (also named Katharine).
As the story unfolds, we learn that the late Katharine Forrest died in a heart wrenching accident while sliding down the bannister–an accident from which Auntie Roo has never recovered. We also learn that Roo regularly “communicates” with Katharine in the form of seances, as well as singing lullabies to her daughter’s decayed corpse every night in the nursery. Eesh. There is even a scene towards the end of the movie where Roo lovingly strokes the powdery, skeletal face, only to have it disintegrate into ash between her fingers. Talk about being scarred for life.
The central conflict of the movie is that Roo (a little too tenaciously, I’ll admit) wants to adopt the orphaned Katy and keep her at the mansion as a replacement for the daughter she lost. Unfortunately for Roo, Katy’s brother Christopher is part of the deal, and he is wise to her kidnap-flavored plans (and all the creepy, corpse-related moments he has witnessed while spying on her). He and Katy manage to escape Forrest Grange unharmed, but (*spoiler alert, as indicated by the movie’s title*) the same cannot be said for Auntie Roo.
The main problem with conflating this movie with Hansel and Gretel is that a direct comparison is rather misleading. In this story, Roo is an extremely sympathetic character overall. Her actions are misinterpreted by the children (Christopher, especially), therefore they see her as a force of evil when she is really not. Unlike in the original Hansel and Gretel tale, Roo isn’t a crazy, malevolent witch who wants to snatch up wayward children in order to eat them for supper. She genuinely loves kids. She is sad, she is unbearably lonely, she is perhaps mentally unstable…but never ill-intentioned. It’s a pretty tragic story when you get right down to it, and one that may even have a darker ending than the original fairy tale.
I think I would give this one a solid B grade. Shelley Winters’ theatrics can be a little much at times, but on the whole it’s an interesting spin on a classic story, with decent scares and legitimate suspense. You can find Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? available to stream on Amazon Video–give it a chance and let me know what you think!
Tomorrow, Charles will continue our exploration of the ’70s with a review on 1975’s Deep Red. Be sure to come back to check it out, along with the rest of this month’s reviews for 31 Days of Horror!!
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