Usage of cinematography and sound design to induce fear in Alien (1979)

As one of the great classics of the science-fiction / horror genres, Ridley Scott’s Alien
employs masterful filmmaking techniques to create a film experience unlike any other;
subtle elements within the film affect the viewer in ways they do not realize to boost the
mystery and suspense within. In this essay, I will analyse techniques in cinematography and
sound design during Dallas’s death scene and how they work to boost the suspense and fear
of the film at that point.

The scene opens with a shot pulling away from the cleaner living quarters of the ship before
settling on a dark, industrial looking room. The vent then opens and the camera cuts to
Dallas crawling through and being sealed in. Filming the scene this way serves to make the
audience feel that they are trapped too, being pulled away from the white, well lit section of
the ship and placed inside the dark steel underbelly. The camera continues to move
backwards after Dallas has entered, but it moves much slower as if it is also confined by the
limited space of the vent.

When Dallas first enters the vent, we see him at a long angle as he gradually crawls towards
the camera while making his way to the second duct opening. The framing of this shot
however makes it feel much more like a POV shot, as if the alien is already aware of Dallas’s

Inside the vents there is a fan spinning, making a repetitive noise as it pushes air through
the ducts. This noise sounds very similar to a heartbeat and adds a certain level of horror to
the environment that Dallas is in; it makes the location feel much more foreign and hostile,
whilst also drowning out Dallas’s attempts to communicate with the rest of the crew. The
sound slowly fades away, as the dominant sound becomes the beeping of the tracker,
before coming back just before Dallas is attacked by the alien in hiding.

The tracker that Dallas has works as a tension builder – it makes a repetitive, high pitched
noise that both he and the rest of the crew can hear, and although it’s supposed to keep
him safe, informing everybody of the location of the alien, it’s been proven unreliable. The
beeping of the tracker grows with the soundtrack as the danger becomes more imminent,
until both audios stop entirely upon Dallas’s demise.

The lighting in this scene also adds to the claustrophobic environment, as despite being in a
tight space anyway, Dallas still can’t see more than a few feet in front of himself and doesn’t
fully know what’s happening. This claustrophobic feel persists even when the camera cuts to
the other crew members as every shot is done as a close-up, which also serves to make the
rest of the crew feel just as helpless as their friend in the air ducts.
Ash is particularly interesting in this scene as unlike the rest of the crew panicking, he
watches with a cold stare, some light foreshadowing for his betrayal later on. Ash knows
that Dallas has been sent to his death, and the same light fixture that illuminates Ripley’s
face keeps his in the dark.
To conclude, obscuring shadows and irritating sounds are employed in this sequence to
both overpower the characters and highlight the danger within – Dallas cannot speak due to
the air current in the vents and the poor equipment, and because of the limited space and
visibility he is essentially in a void, separate from the rest of the crew, but alone with the
alien.