Alien

FIRE IN THE BELLY Hurt has heartburn like nobody’s business.

The image of an alien with steely teeth bursting out of Hurt’s chest has become so indelibly burned in the collective memory that it tends to overshadow the rest of this kick-ass movie. Viewed with fresh eyes, Alien really holds up as a tremendous genre exercise that moves elegantly from slow-creeping dread to jump-out-of-your-seat terror. With a surprisingly limited special-effects budget, Scott delivers an alien you can be terrified of and fascinated by.

The script is a model of narrative economy, offering us characters defined in a few deft brushstrokes. It takes only a few lines to understand disgruntled Parker (Kotto), dim Brett (Stanton), aloof Ash (Holm), coolly competent Ripley (Weaver) and the rest. The first section of the movie (pre-chest-burst) moves forward in elliptical scenes, often using thrown-away or overlapping dialogue that feels almost Altmanesque; you have to pay attention to get all the nuances.

Post-chest-burst, Scott delivers the classic horror elimination rounds of people chasing and being chased (In his commentary on the DVD, Scott describes this part as “Seven Little Indians”), finding new ways to shock and scare us at each new turn. This is a film that stands up to repeated viewings, and at least one of those viewings should be on a big screen.

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