It started long before I even saw the movie.
I was chatting with some friends in a park when they suddenly fell to the ground and started flopping around like fishes out of water. I watched, stunned, as they slowly slid their hand under their shirt and started poking a fist against the fabric as if something was trying to get out of their chest, which is just what happened. Their fist bumps become more erratic and violent, their bodies arching with every beat. When their flailing reached a crescendo, their hands burst out of their shirts. With a final flop, they lay still on the ground, except for their fists which started to bite at the air like a hungry hand puppet while they all made eerie, shrieking sounds.
That was my introduction to the 1979 sci-fi classic, Alien and its famous chest-bursting scene. Or at least to my friends’ reenactment since I had not seen it. I went to see the reel thing that night and immediately converted to Alien, director Ridley Scott and bad-ass alien slayer Sigourney Weaver.
Flash forward about a quarter of a century. I am a professional movie critic attending the Toronto International Film Festival, where they are holding a special 25th-anniversary screening of Alien with director Scott and various cast members. I didn’t have a ticket to this sold-out event, so I went to the press office to beg. I get a ticket and then score an even more significant coup. One of the publicists informed me that Yaphett Kotto, who plays Parker in the film, is hanging out in one of the publicity suite’s rooms. They aren’t trying to set up an interview with him and would prefer if I didn’t write about it, but if I’d like to meet the man, they will escort me to him. I agreed and was treated to a lovely quarter of an hour chatting with this extraordinary man. Yes, we talked about the anniversary screening, but we also spoke about his roles in classic films, like Live and Let Die, where he played the intimidating Bond villains Kananga/Mr. Big, Across 100th Street as Lt. Pope, and Midnight Run, an underrated comedy he made with Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin.
It was a shameless fanboy experience for me and one of the highlights of my movie-reviewing career, even though I never wrote about it until now.
I set aside the memories of friends and famous actors when I recently rewatched Alien. The problem with knowing what will happen in a film on a second viewing is that the shock of some of the best original moments is gone, You fall back and watch with a critical eye. Instead of watching what is happening, you watch to see how they did it.
I didn’t have that sensation watching Alien. The foreknowledge I brought to the film only heightened the tension. Sure, I stared at John Hurt when he sat down with his crew mates to eat for the first time after coming out of his Aline-induced coma waiting for the first signs of terminal indigestion, but once he started to cough and gag in earnest, all bets were off. A video of me watching the scene would show the same blank look of horror on the rest of the crew as the baby alien snapped its teeth at them. (Unlike the first time I saw the scene on the big screen in a packed movie house, I didn’t scream out loud.)
From that moment on, the hook was set deep, and Scott, his cast, and crew played me like a fish. I knew what would happen to Dallas (Tom Skerrit) once he went into those damn air ducts, but that didn’t keep me from biting my nail watching those two dots (Dallas and the alien) close in on each other in the handheld monitor tracking their progress. And I knew Ash (Ian Holm) was not to be trusted, but I still freaked out when his big secret was graphically revealed.
And even though I knew how the original Alien ended and the many parts Sigourney Weaver would play in the sequels, it’s hard not to cheer when Ripley defeats the alien at the movie’s end. However, it gave me fresh insights into what a fantastic performance Weaver gives in this first Alien movie. In the subsequent film, Ripley is a badass warrior woman who goes toe-to-toe with the alien creatures and usually kicks their butts. In Alien, though, she is as scared and confused as anybody would be faced with the terror of a man-eating monster, and that fear is palpable. Watch the scene where Ripley finally gets control of the ship and gains access to the computer to ask what the f*ck is happening. The answer, then and now, is shocking, but it’s Weaver’s reaction to hearing the truth that seals the deal and cranks the tension up to 11 for the rest of the movie.
