In Space…

…no one can hear you scream.

My fascination with Alien began when I was a kid. I remember browsing through a TV guide when I was about 8 or 9 coming across that strange “Alien” show which was airing that night. Of course my mother quickly said “No, you are too young to watch that” but this one photo and that brief synopsis stuck. And when I was finally “old enough” (I believe about 12/13) I couldn’t wait to see it one night. It was all I imagined it to be and that much more (keep in mind that TV shows in Germany are always heavily edited, all the more back in the 80s). I’ve had seen plenty of monster movies (from the 50s, 60s and 70s) and alien creatures but nothing was as fascinating as this one. It looked so utterly – alien – that it just made everything else pale at that point. Yet, it was also so familiar in its human like form and movements. The one scene that I just couldn’t get out of head that night was the moment the Alien “greets” Dallas in the vent shaft. It was so unexpected but also the first full view of the grown creature that I wished for a replay button. Here now is my homage to that scene, reenacted with the new NECA Alien figure, which is again extremely detailed.

I am no friend of horror movies; I’ve seen a few over the years and they just don’t appeal to me (I will never understand the onslaught of recent hacker, slasher and gore fest movies). Alien was the big exception as it played much more on suspense then on visual gore. There was an unexpected calm throughout the movie that struck a perfect balance between the action and suspense, even after the creature was unleashed. I wish there were more movies like this one around, showing less and leaving more to our own imagination. No matter how brilliant a director is and how graphic the imagery there is still nothing more frightening to me than my own imagination.

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