In celebration of Alien Romulus, this week we will be looking back at each film in the Alien franchise. Today, the one that started it all. Alien

Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien is a masterpiece. The film spawned numerous sequels, a crossover series, countless books, and a plethora of video games. Alien is a powerhouse franchise but it all started with this small contained horror film from 1979 made on a budget of just 11 million dollars.

Alien wasn’t always viewed as a masterclass in cinema. Upon release, the film received pretty mixed reviews. It was a box office success but critics were torn over the actual value of the film. It was a great story, but it was hard to see the deeper themes and messages behind such an incredibly fun horror flick. I believe this is precisely what makes Alien a masterpiece.

Alien’s plot revolves around a group of commercial space truckers hauling a load of precious materials. The crew is awoken from their sleep stasis to investigate a mysterious transmission coming from an unknown planet. The crew searches this mysterious planet and brings back onboard with them a mysterious alien life form. A life form that violently attached itself to the executive officer’s face. Panic ensues as the alien breeds inside the officer, a larger and more violent alien emerges from his chest and rapidly grows while the crew attempts to find and kill the uninvited lifeform.

Alien deals with a lot of smart and interesting themes and it does so in a satisfying way. The film can be viewed as a critique of capitalism. The crew are mere space truckers, purposefully put in harm’s way by a large evil corporation. It is revealed later in the film that one of the crew members is an android who has been working with the company all along. This plot line mirrors the overall narrative of the film. The crew is searching their large spacecraft for an intelligent violent uninvited alien, but there is already an intelligent violent uninvited alien in their midst. Sigourney Weaver stars in the film as Ripley and late in the film, she saves a cat that is onboard the ship. A small inferior species is saved by a gracious overlord, a juxtaposition to the central plot of the film. The alien, the android, and the company are all callous and violent superior beings. They are stronger than humans intellectually, physically, and monetarily, but it’s the humans who succeed because we have empathy for those around us. We love and protect creatures both large and small. There are even smaller details like Ripley’s outfit in the film. Ripley wears an army green flight suit and white Chuck Taylors for most of the film’s run time. Green represents the color of money, stating she is nothing more than an asset to the evil corporation while the white shoes represent hope, purity, and salvation. She eventually fully transforms at the end, donning an all-white space suit to finally once and for all defeat the evil all-black alien. All of these small fun tidbits exist in the film but if you want, you can forget all of that and just enjoy a fantastic horror movie.

The way Alien portrays terror was remarkable in 1979 and it’s remarkable now. There was no CGI so everything had to be done practically to create this horrifying monster. A monster that would go on to become iconic in cinema history. But we get very few shots of the actual alien in Alien. The xenomorph is often shot with a long lens in extreme closeups showing his mouth and teeth. This terrifying image provides a sense of scale and terror because when we see the alien, it’s already too late. We are face to face with the beast. Other shots have an actor framed front and center, again with a long lens, while the monster’s tail slowly rises towards them. The only full shot we get of the alien is at the end of the film and it looks…. a lot like a guy in an alien costume. This is the magic of constrained filmmaking. Had Ridley Scott shown the monster in full view towards the beginning of the movie, the immersion would have been gone. The budget and technology didn’t exist to make a horrifying giant monster so instead we get it lit in dark hallways, hiding in cramped spaces, and closeups of the monster’s most terrifying features. All this happens inside a cramped space with a twist-filled plot that keeps the audience guessing.

Films can tell a larger story, portray bigger themes, and deal with complex issues but in order for them to be truly great they must get the most important thing about movies right. They have to be entertaining. There are amazing films that tell extraordinary stories with technical perfection. Films like The Tree of Life by Terrance Malik or Pi from Darren Aronofsky. These are exceptional films that are worth studying but in many ways, they fail at cinema’s most important task. To entertain. Alien is the rare film that not only does both but does so with such impeccable execution that it remains just as relevant and entertaining now as it was 45 years ago. Alien is a 10 out of 10 film and I hope Fede Alvarez can capture at least part of what makes this original film so special.