When one thinks of a classic horror film, what are some of the first images that come to mind? Most typically you have Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers invading your brain. They are the most instantly recognizable horror icons (though Pinhead is certainly up there). You've also got your vintage horror icons like Vincent Price and Bela Lugosi, who all represent more traditional horror films than the aforementioned slasher icons but probably aren't thought of as front runners anymore.
The problem with Freddy and Jason and Michael movies is that they all follow a very similar and very distinct formula - promiscuous teenagers getting killed in horrible manners is the point of all these movies, more or less. Sometimes these teens are so annoying that we actually cheer for the guy killing them and doing us the favor of cleansing the gene pool. I distinctly remember hearing cheers in the theater during several death scenes when I saw the remake of Friday the 13th.
And believe it or not, this is a problem. Or at least, it may be a problem, depending on the creator's intent. Typically, aren't we supposed to be supporting the humans? Aren't we supposed to fear the murderer? That's generally the way it's supposed to be, everyone fears the murderer and tries to team up to kill him, or at the very least to try to survive. The problem is that the supporting cast of victims waiting to happen has the annoying tendency to be bland and annoying to the point that we would rather they be dead. They spend most of their time being a bunch of melodramatic whiners and having sex and doing all sorts of things that lead us to think they're just not good people (in a cruel irony, many teenagers actually do everything the victims do in these movies and then complain about the victims and call them annoying. Hypocrites).
This is part of the reason these films may end up being cult classics - there are lots of people out there who absolutely adore horror/slasher films - they will never end up being true classics because frankly, they just aren't very good films no matter how much fun they may be or how much people may enjoy them.
That is, until Ridley Scott came along.
Alien, that great sci-fi/horror epic that Ridley Scott created oh so many moons ago, took a vastly different approach. The human characters had the distinct advantage of being an older bunch, most of the actors were in their forties actually, and being a group of better than average actors with a highly skilled director commanding them they made a far more believable bunch than a bunch of high school students snorting cocaine. What's the first thing they do when they wake up from cryo-sleep? They eat. Hey, i'd be hungry too after sleeping for a few months straight. And they talk. They just talk, bicker a little, and then they go to work. And they chat and bicker some more too. And then as we know, they run into the Space Jockey, John Hurt meets with a facehugger that leaves a vicious little punk in his ribcage, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
Speaking of which, the most nifty thing is the alien itself. Unlike the other murderers we typically deal with, who are particularly wicked or demented men with an unnatural level of strength, here we have an animal, a beast. There is nothing human about this thing (except for the fact that it's a man in a suit, but we'll forgive them that one); it cannot be reasoned with - a bear is going to do what a bear is going to do, after all. It cannot be understood. It acts out of pure instinct. It is strong, it is fast, it is stealthy, and even in death it is still dangerous thanks to its acidic blood. As Ash said it is, in many respects, a perfect organism.
There are other aspects about Alien that make it such a standout film. For example, Captain Dallas, the big, strong, square-jawed man in charge, seems to be set up to be the hero. And then he goes and gets himself killed. So who steps up to take his place? Ripley. The cute young woman who looked a little dainty for a miner. Yep. She's the heroine. That was a huge break from trend, and Alien was the first movie to do something like that. With the bigger budget Mr. Scott was working with, the sets and the alien itself were of much better quality than most contemporary horror/slasher flicks, which helped him create a very intense, suspenseful atmosphere, giving the film far more effect than relying on cheap jumps and lots of blood.
Alien was just such a well executed movie; it's incredibly hard to imagine how anyone else could have done it. Ridley Scott is an excellent filmmaker, one of the very best. He put some good thought and a lot of time and effort into that movie. It honestly didn't have a very high budget, right around ten million dollars (still way better than most slasher movies ever get), but thanks to careful planning, good writing, good acting, and phenomenal editing, we ended up with an all-time classic film. Which, frankly, is something that rarely ever happens in the horror genre. The Freddy movies and Jason movies all have their place in society and in our hearts, but Alien has a place too - in the Academy Awards.
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