So, where were YOU when you first encountered Ridley Scott's masterpiece of shapeshifting space terror? Here's what WildClaw's Dr. AC had to say:
"I had the good fortune of seeing ALIEN for the first time in the cinema in 1979, back when "chest-burster" had not yet entered the popular lexicon. All I was aware of going in, at the tender age of 11, was the creepy poster art of that infamous space egg, with the unforgettable tagline "In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream." Coming out, I knew that I had been changed forever, much in the same way that HALLOWEEN had traumatized me the year before. I was a huge fan of monster-in-a-suit movies and I loved sci-fi, but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see aboard the Nostromo's fateful last voyage.
"The chest-buster scene was one of those magical moments in my moviegoing life, now that I look back on it. The crowd that I saw it with did not, remarkably enough, scream out loud when little junior Alien popped out of John Hurt's innards. Instead, we all just sat there slack-jawed, disbelieving, and quietly, slowly, inexorably lost our mutual mind. Stunned doesn't even begin to approach what we felt. We had all encountered something that we not only hadn't seen before, we had never even imagined it. It was something akin to PSYCHO's shower scene - once witnessed, it could never, ever be forgotten."
Anyone else?
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2 comments:
Well, I saw it at a preview screening in a Texas mall. People in line were speculating that it was some sort of outer space "Star Wars" type movie. My audience was one big scream after another once the first egg burst open. And when I say scream, I don't mean gasps of terror. I mean, full blown, rip the seats out of the cement screaming. A lot.
At that point, The Haunting was knocked out of first place for the scariest movie I had ever seen.
I saw it on video after having somehow made it thru John Carpenter's "The Fog". we made it up to the egg scene and we were too freaked out to continue. so what did we do? we ran outside and ran through the woods at three oclock in the morning. how's that supposed to calm your nerves? I think some cars got set on fire that night, some livestock crucified, certainly a pint or two of urine was released at the wrong time.
god I love that film.
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