So, I just saw Alien for the first time in theaters last week. What an absolutely amazing experience that was. I knew as I walked out it had to be my next subject for the club, especially as it was the first time my girlfriend had seen it, and I found her input interesting. I promise this won't become I regular occurance for those of you who are turned off by this sort of monologue

Alien is a Ridley Scott film, released in 1979. It stars Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, and Harry Dean Stanton as the crew of an enormous mining cargo ship called the Nostromo. They are also the only characters in the entire film, unless you'd like to include the Xenomorph and Mother. I want to say I absolutely adore this part of the film as well. Films with smaller casts tend to be generally better, in my experience, and Alien is certainly in the category.

For this meeting, I've decided to sort of split it between my own feelings and the impression it made on my girlfriend. I won't strictly separate them as if it were two different meetings though, just will sort of compare my feelings on it to hers, as her opinion is one I found interesting. For context, she isn't quite as much of a sort of film nerd as I am, but I can sit her down and get her to give most any movie a chance. She likes horror, but hasn't seen a lot of older horror movies. I actually took her to see Night of the Living Dead for her first time in theaters as well. She's not exactly the biggest fan of atmospheric horrors though, so I didn't expect her to hold Alien in high regard after seeing it.

Now then, let's begin. Alien probably has my favorite opening sequence of a horror movie, at worst its tied with The Shining. You feel immediate dread with it, but you're not quite sure why. Now obviously it's not exactly innocent or trying to make you feel happy, but I'm always impressed when I watch it by how much it impacts you while doing so little. The stylish title card, and intense soundtrack are just outstanding. The girlfriend, surprisingly to me, actually somewhat said the same. She didn't articulate it as I just described, but when I asked her about it she said she definitely got a sort of pressure from it. Like the movie was kind of bearing down on her, to which I added like a train. All the way to the opening scene you really feel this dread, as the camera pans across the ship and shows off the amazing, although claustrophobic, set design of it, and we come upon the pods of Ripley, Dallas, Kane, Parker, Lambert, Ash, and Brett. As an aside, these are in the order of the cast I listed off earlier. Of course, it then proceeds to disarm you entirely with their introduction. The camaraderie among the crew is outstanding, and their interactions feel wholly genuine. I absolutely can't say for certain, but I personally wouldn't be surprised if the table scenes of the movie were all mostly improv.

I'd like to focus on the general audio of the film for a bit. It doesn't totally come across on a tablet with headphones or on your average household TV, but the sound mixing and general audio for Alien is stellar. The ship feels like a haunted house of metallic groans and damp clangs, constantly hanging behind each line of dialogue and each otherwise silent moment. It's not that the Nostromo feels alive, it's the fact that it doesn't. This sort of focused white noise makes this enormous hull feel so hollow and lonely, even with the bit of liveliness the crew brings. It's easy to think the alien could already be on the Nostromo before it is laid out for you, that's how uncomfortable it is in a theater. It honestly felt like each speaker was playing a different, haunted sound. It was such an amazing experience in the theatre, I've been gushing over it since.

Mrstheliger doesn't usually tend to focus on on lighting and those sort of more technical aspects, but she actually took note of the clever use of lighting in Alien. She was surprised by how real the Xenomorph felt, and that even though she's obviously seen clips and stills of the creature before, she was totally surprised by how consistently well done the shots and lighting were to hide any possible issues with the monster. Obviously she didn't word it like a writer, but I thought I'd take some initiative and expand on her thoughts here, because obviously I feel the same way. It really is an impressive feat, specifically for 1979, the way the Xenomorph moved and felt.

I've honestly struggled to find the time to write this one out, and it's taken a few separate days of three or four minutes typing to get my thoughts complete, so I apologize if this meeting seems a bit less focused and more scattershot, but I wanted to get it done while the movie was still fresh in my mind. Thank you everyone for coming, and please, let's talk further in depth about this! I wanna hear your thoughts on Ripley, the finale, everything!