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Darke Reviews | Alien (1979)

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Some movies have good posters. Some movies have good trailers. Then there are the taglines.

“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…”

“Who ya gonna call?”

“Houston, we have a problem.”

“They’re here”

Each of those evoke a memory of a film or a moment in time. They are all you needed to know what you were getting into. Now, imagine if you will (a place beyond sight and sound?), the concept of a horror movie in space is all but unknown. Sci Fi horror and truly gruesome alien monsters don’t exist. You walk into your local cineplex and see the image above with this tagline:

“In space, no one can hear you scream.”

At the bare minimum you might be curious, but what would you be getting if you paid money for a ticket?

The very definition of gothic horror actually.  Written by Dan O’Bannon, inspired by his earlier work Dark Star, and co written by Ronald Shusett. Both of the men would go on to have little success beyond this with Total Recall being one of the few non-Alien based movies of any notoriety.  It’s a shame since they did such a fantastic job in making relatable working class characters that you bother to care about. If that seems a trend in some of my reviews, it is. It is important to me that I care about the characters and create investment in their well being. If I don’t care if they live or die, then where is the tension? There’s no reason to care, then I am only watching for the psychotic glee of witnessing horrific deaths. That has its purpose from time to time, but to be truly great – you need to care. It’s also worth mentioning many of the tropes and cliches of modern cinema started with movies like this. Not only that, but they created a universe here. One we keep dipping our toes back into year after year – Books, Comics, Sequels, Video Games…all of it.

The story here, for those uninitiated, focuses on a group of blue collar miners on a massive space ship and refinery called the Nostromo. They are woken from cryosleep by a mysterious signal from a nearby planet LV-426.  A small recon team is sent to explore the source of the signal and uncovers an ancient ship with secrets within. A specimen is brought back to the ship which begins its return voyage home; only for things to go  wrong. Claustrophobia, fear of an unknown creature, fear of each other, and an ever increasing body count ramp the tension to a climax unlike most others.

The acting cast reads almost as a who’s who of 70’s and 80’s films. Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas, Sigourney Weaver as Lt. Ellen Ripley (in one of her first screen appearances),  Veronica Cartwright as Lambert, Harry Dean Stanton as Brett, John Hurt as Kane, and Ian Holm as Ash. Every aspect of their characters works. They feel real. Their reactions are honest (in some cases very honest). Special recognition of course must go to Weaver. She has the unenviable task of carrying the film when it initially appears Skerritt – the veteran – would do so. She is outmatched in nearly every capacity by the creature that is stalking them except her will to survive. That is a thing of beauty to watch.

Director Ridley Scott, who has done more famous films than I can list reasonably, made this his opening to Hollywood as a director. He did it remarkably. Every aspect of this after the script came down to his raw direction. Tight claustrophobic tunnels, steam, poor lighting, uneven camera angles, and practical effects all from his hand and eye. Granted all the beautiful atmosphere that makes it the gothic classic that it is wouldn’t do well if the villain was Pennywise.

AlienPennywise

Beep Beep Ripley. Beep Beep

 

For that we went to the mad genius H.R. Giger. His brain had a thing for the blending of man, machine, and monster. This isn’t to say he made cyborgs or robots, but rather things that seemed to defy both in their surrealist organic nature. Thankfully, he won an Academy Award for this. The creature design is iconic and alone may be the reason this franchise has spawned so many sequels and stories over the decades.

TL;DR

This movie is definitive. It is the work you need to go back to if you want to do horror in space. No one, arguably, has done it better since.

It has some gore to it, but most of the horror comes from what you can’t see and what you aren’t being shown. This movie successfully combines psychological horror, science fiction, and monster movies.

It’s an absolute film.

This is Jessica Darke, with the last review of the night. Signing off.

 

 

 

 

Darke Reviews | Ghostbusters (1984)

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So this was a four movie weekend, with November Man, As Above So Below, a second viewing of Guardians of the Galaxy, and this release – Ghostbusters. I had the lovely opportunity to see this on an XD screen friday night. Why the late review? Two main reasons with the first being the boring stuff of housework. The second being I wanted to wait to see how the box office panned out for this weekend to give me something additional to write about.

Well what about the movie itself?

We have a story written by Harold Ramis (Meatballs, Stripes, Caddyshack) and Dan Aykroyd a relative unknown to the writing circuit with only Blues Brothers to his name. Now, they also have some TV under their collective belts as well with Aykroyd as a writer for 56 episodes of Saturday Night Live, now in its 8th season. Ramis is no slouch either, with his work on 47 episodes of the Canadian variant SCTV (Second City Television). It also helps these two are both natural actors and comedians themselves with quite the body of work on them combined. Aykroyd is most famous for his turn as Elwood Blues and his recent success in Trading Places which stayed in the top 10 for an amazing 19 weeks, made more even impressive by it having only 700 theatres for the final 10. Ramis, like Aykroyd also stared in the show he wrote, as well as his own appearance in Stripes.

Pair this comedic writing talent with a director who understands the people he is working with and it should be a recipe for success right? Well thats where we get Ivan Reitman. Director of Meatballs and Stripes. He also was a producer on the wildly insane Animal House and even stranger animated movie Heavy Metal.  A good set of writers and pretty good director should make for a good movie. Thats where acting comes in.

I’ve already talked up Aykroyd(Dr. Raymond Stantz) and Ramis (Dr. Egon Spengler). The three main leads are rounded out with Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman. You may have seen him in Meatballs, Caddyshack, or Stripes. Noticing a pattern here? In some cases such repetitive work doesn’t pan out, its like lightning in a bottle. In this case it does as the men can play off each other amazing well with a natural chemistry and charm that makes even Murray’s Venkman, who is rather unlikeable, somewhat charming.
What of the costars?

Off setting the raw comedic talent is the tough girl of sci fi – Sigourney Weaver (Dana Barrett) who played Ellen Ripley in 1979’s Alien. She recently worked with newcomer Mel Gibson in the Year of Living Dangerously, but with only three credits to her name putting her in this comedy is a bit odd. It works, it works perfectly. Another TV to screen transfer is Rick Moranis also from SCTV. There are rumors he has some writing credit on this movie as well – which wouldn’t be a surprise. His portrayal as Louis Tully is a different kind of comedy than the boys with the proton packs give and  works fairly well. Another TV star joins the cast as well with William Atherton as an antagonist – who sadly I tend to agree with his ideals if not his methods. Character actor Ernie Hudson plays the straight man to the boys in brown as Winston Zeddemore. He is just just what this film needed aside from Weaver to ground everything in something relatable and touchable.

From a technical standpoint they did a lot right. They went as practical as they could. Miniatures, composite shots, layers, all of the tricks of the trade were used. The animation work holds pretty well too and in some cases is actually pretty scary when seen on high definition TV.

TL;DR?

This movie is funny. This movie is entertaining. I think it can hold up for quite some time to come. If you didn’t see it this weekend – you should have but you have the rest of the week to see it!

Do so. This movie is for all ages! Let me know what you think. I’m ready to believe you.

Now…for the entire surreal element to end. I wanted to write this review as if I was writing it for a new release. It deserves that. Nostalgia aside this thing holds up 30 years later in nearly every department aside from FX. Even then, most of those hold up. The movie is one of the all time greats and is absolutely worth seeing this week.

Now as far as the box office. I said i wanted to write about it. On the four days of release Ghostbusters at 30 years later did almost as much as Sin City 2 did in its second week. Now, that isn’t a fair comparison. You see A Dame to Kill for had FOUR times as many theatres as Ghostbusters. THAT is awesome for a movie 30 years old and terrible for a movie only in its second week. Another kind of awesome fact about Ghostbusters, in its 30 week run back in 1984 it was #1, 2 or 3 for 16 weeks. Only Purple Rain and Red Dawn knocked it out during that time.

If you were an adult who saw this as a child – take your child to it. The kids in my showing really seemed to enjoy it.

Now there’s only one real question – Who ya gonna call?