ALIEN

Fig. 1; Alien poster art

This review will talk about the film Alien (1979) directed by Ridley Scott, James
Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. We will discuss the “Monstrous
Feminine” which is represented in the film by the Xenomorph as well as its
reproduction system, and also H.R. Giger’s influences in art and how he helped in
the making of Alien.
Alien tells the story of the crew of the commercial starship Nostromo when they are
awakened, half-way through their way back to Earth, from their cryo-sleep capsules
in order to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel. The crew then encounters
a nest of eggs inside the alien ship. One of the eggs opens and the organism inside
of it attaches itself to one of the crew members which causes him to fall into a coma.
We see that Xenomorph is the most evolved alien throughout the movie and she is
actually the Queen. The life cycle of these creatures is proto-embryo → cocoon egg
→ facehugger → embryo → chestburster → adult. The aliens reproduce by invading
in another organism and all the stages can be seen in the film. First, we have the
cocoon egg which has the facehugger inside it. Then, the facehugger attaches itself
on one of the crew member’s face. The other crew members could only remove it
from his face when an embryo had already been forming inside his body. Later on,
and as everyone thought that the crew member was safe, we are introduced to the
chestburster which emerges from inside the man, killing him in the process. We do
not know how exactly the Queen is evolved or how she’s created. We do know
though that she is capable of producing a lot of eggs.
The Queen seems to be in the film to represent the “Monstrous Feminine”,
something which is common in horror films. In general, we view the female gender
as the victim in the movie industry, in the horror genre we see that females challenge
this dominant, patriarchal view. When females are depicted as “monstrous”, it refers
to their mothering functions, their reproductive body. As stated before, the Queen is
capable of producing many eggs, and this is something scary itself as we don’t know
if she is asexual or sexual, but it’s probably the first of the two. She is feared by the
other aliens, making her rightful to be queen. She is a disgusting form of a mother
and seems to only care about the reproduction of her species. “The titular alien,
which was designed by Swiss artist H.R. Giger, and is only partially glimpsed
throughout, remains the most elegantly vile creature to ever grace cinema screens”.
– Havis.
This disgusting Xenomorph is created by none other than Giger, a swiss painter, and
it was originally posted in his book Necronomicon under the name Necronom IV.
This book was handed over to Ridley Scott by O’Bannon, one of the film’s screen
writers. “Well," Scott said to O’Bannon; “either my problems are over or they’ve just
begun...”
His influences are his own dreams. He had said that he used to have the same
nightmares over and over, until one day he started painting them and they
immediately disappeared. It’s like a psychotherapy to him.
Giger designed and built the Alien costume, the cocoon eggs, the facehugger form
inside the eggs, the surface of the planet LV-426, its dank, ribbed interior and its
pilot. Apart from design, he was also the one who painted them. His creations gave
the film the horror vibe it needed to make the viewers either want to throw up or
close their TV screens out of fear. Which is good if you consider that’s what the
horror genre is all about. “All fantasy films carry in their wake a warehouseful of
weird and wonderful production paintings”. – Newman.
To conclude, Giger’s artwork was all the movie directors and productors needed to
boost the film’s horror aspect, especially with the aliens more than anything. The
main alien, the Queen is a good example of the “Monstrous Feminine”, with the way
she is the only one who can reproduce by herself, making her children fearful of her.
Her children depend on other creatures in order to produce offsprings.
Harvard Bibliography:
Sources:

 Studies in Fiction. (2011) The Monstrous Feminine (Barbara Creed 1993) –

November 2001 [online] at:
https://studiesinfiction.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/55/ (Accessed on 13.12.18)
  Lamble. (2017) HR Giger and the making of Alien – UK – April 2017 [online]
at: https://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/hr-giger/30522/hr-giger-and-the-
making-of-alien (Accessed on 13.12.18)
 Lamb. (date unknown) How the ‘Alien’ Xenomorph works [online] at:
https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/alien-xenomorph7.htm (Accessed on
13.12.18)

Image:
 Figure 1. Alien poster art (2014) [poster] at: https://www.nyfa.edu/student-
resources/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/poster-horror-movie-alien-solopress-
printing.jpg (Accessed on 13.12.18)
Quotations:
 Scott: https://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/hr-giger/30522/hr-giger-and-the-
making-of-alien
 Newman: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/alien/review/
 Havis: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-
music/article/2115890/flashback-alien-1979-ridley-scotts-sci-fi-horror