Weekly Cinemeh

Hello and welcome back to Weekly Cinemeh. This week we continue with our month long horror theme with another franchise: Alien. So, xenomorphs abound! The Alien franchise is well know for being great at monster based horror. It is also known for being hit and miss after the first couple movies. Anyways~ To the list!

1: Alien
This is my favorite of the franchise. Ridley Scott knows how to scare the shit out of people. This movie is tense and atmospheric and even if you know whats going to happen still makes you jump. This is a movie about a corporate spaceship being asked to investigate a strange beacon while on its way back to earth after a mission. While investigating a ship, which may be alien in nature, shit goes wrong when a creature latches onto a guy's face. This leads to a xenomorph trying to eat the crew, and the crew trying to kill it in order to get home safely. An interesting note about this movie: Ripley is only a girl because Ridley Scott thought that people would expect a male character to be the only survivor. So yes, the Talented Ms. Ripley kicks all the ass because people were probably going to be sexist about it. I think its a nice way to buck trends in horror movies, take what people expect and turn it around. I only wish you didn't have to have all of the stereotypes in the first place to make fucking with them so effective. Regardless, the effects are well done and the acting is good. Sigourney Weaver is great as a hero with a (mostly) cool head. This movie is definitely worth watching if you like tense horror that comes from an insurmountable enemy. That being said if you like less psychological horror and more pulpy, action-adventure horror then you should watch the sequel.

Eshi: Attentive readers may have noticed that we have a deep love of practical effects, Alien is why. This film is stunning, as one would expect from something designed by the sorely missed H.R. Giger. I mean sure, pretty much everything the camera sees in Alien is wet, slimy genitals, but they're really visually interesting genitals. The entire set design is subtly off-putting, even the bits that aren't giant industrial fuck-parts, and the characters are all just competent enough to seem like they have an idea of what they're doing, while just stupid enough to make their stupid horror movie decisions forgivable. There's a reason Alien is a classic, watch it.

2: Aliens
I like Aliens despite the fact that I hate James Cameron. I get that he has made lots of hits and all, but none of his movies are memorable for me. He shoots expensive movies with cutting edge technology, which is good for spectacle, but are mostly shallow and leave something to be desired. In the case of Aliens, the dialog is kinda shitty for the bulk of the movie. Every time the machismo driven marines talk I rooted for the alien to eviscerate them. This movie is a direct sequel to the first movie, where Ripley is found and asked about what happened to the Nostromo. Shit goes down when they find out that a colony on the planet where the aliens were first found goes dark and a group of marines needs to go and find out what happened. Sigourney Weaver is still good as Ripley, and I have to say, I love Bill Paxton's freak out moments because he is the only one that reacts in the way you should when terrors from beyond the stars decide to make you into a lunch/baby machine. Lance Henriksen as Bishop was a good choice I think. He is good at expressing emotion and charisma via voice while still keeping a straight face. The action is good looking which is something that James Cameron is good at, and he manages to keep up a good flow and good tension during these scenes as well. Its a good movie if you like a little horror in your action.

Eshi: It was brought up whilst watching this that Xenomorphs are like ninja, one at a time is a fucking terrifying, inexorable rape/murder machine, but a bunch coming at you at once is just a big, floor-melty inconvenience for the most part. Aliens is mostly that second bit, made more critical by good old-fashioned "man is the real monster" bullshit. I kinda hate Paul Reiser as a casting choice, he's got that kinda smug, shit-eating look that just screams GEOD (it occurs to me I don't think I've ever used that acronym on here, Go Evil Or Die.) Fuck yeah Lance Henriksen, he's got that slightly haggard look about him that counterpoints his gentleness and charisma in this role quite well. I too goddamn loathe James Cameron, but even a broken clock manages to look like it has a fucking clue twice a day.

3: Prometheus
This movie is very beautiful, though a lot of people had issues with it as a whole and I can kind of see why. I don't think this is a bad movie but there's a lot missing from it. A few lines here and there to give some explanation of what is going on in a couple of places would have been helpful. It'sis not incomprehensible or anything, but it would have benefited from some more exposition instead of just assuming we would know why a group of people would launch themselves into deep space for reasons unknown. Prometheus is a prequel to the movie Alien where a bunch of archaeologists find clues to an alien species that might have seeded earth with life and where they might be. A group of scientists go to investigate this map  and investigate a possible alien spaceship with predictable results. Despite a lacking plot, there is some good stuff in this movie. Michael Fassbender as the android David is amazing. His portrayal is stoic but full of character (much like Henriksen from Aliens). Everything from his walk to his way of staring at people while talking to them lets you know that he is not human, even though he looks like one. The music in the movie is good as well, and fits with the general theme of exploration. The thing is, this movie lacks heart in a lot of ways and its script is a mess. The main characters are fucking stupid, and have no idea how to interact with a new environment despite having knowledge of what happens when two previously separated groups of people meet without any form of sterilization. Seriously, at one point a scientist takes off his helmet because he wants to breath in the air inside a space ship. Surely nothing bad can happen from that right? Apparently, a version of the script that was far more coherent exists, but got fucked up because they decided to bring in one of the writers behind Lost. Hopefully, the sequels will not get fucked up. I still have faith that the franchise can produce good space horror.

Eshi: If I have three wishes that I could only use in regard to Prometheus, My first wish would be that Damon Lindelof had been arrested for too much goat fucking about two weeks before whatever fucking genius gave him access to the script had done so. Second would be that they had gone with the original script, because even without Lindelof and his goatfuckery, they could have still done something stupid, like incorporating a giant spider or something. The last one would just be a high five from Michael Fassbender, because those are my only real complaints about the film and Michael Fassbender is pretty fucking bad ass and I'm always excited about a bad ass high five. The main character is kind of unlikable, so I have a hard time not enjoying how much she gets shit-kicked. It really isn't that bad, it just could have been so much better.