Content warning for discussions of death, rape and body horror.
“In space, no one can hear you scream.”
That’s the tagline to pop culture’s favorite sci-fi horror movie — a film that pushed the genre forward with an incredible display of acting and top-notch production, with layers of themes and subtext that only add to the horror found within. It also brought us the legendary xenomorph. Let’s talk about Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie: “Alien.”
Welcome back to the Modern Monster, a media analysis column based around the things people find scary, whatever that may be. Every week, I take us through another spooky story to talk about the hidden meanings found within, and how these fears can be seen in our modern day.
“Alien” isn’t the scariest movie I’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t unsettling. The story follows a team of seven humans and one cat on a spaceship known as the Nostromo. The Nostromo is carrying mineral ore from some far-off planet back to Earth, with its crew skipping through the journey by spending it in cryo-sleep. However, the crew is suddenly woken by its ship computer, known as Mother, voiced by Helen Horton, who alerts the crew that it has received a distress signal.
When I watch horror movies, I like to guess who the final survivor of the film will be. If you’re like me, you would’ve guessed our hero to be the man who wakes up first from the sleeping pods and whose perspective is highlighted most by the camera: executive officer Kane, played by John Hurt.
Kane, Captain Dallas, played by Tom Skerritt and navigator Lambert, played by Veronica Cartwright, decide to check out the signal. They descend upon the planet and find an abandoned ship, inside which they find an egg. The egg opens, Kane sticks his face in it and a crab-like alien creature leaps out, burns through his helmet and attaches itself to his face.
Dallas and Lambert take Kane back to the ship. While trying to enter, the ship’s warrant officer Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, tells them that she can’t let them back inside with an alien due to quarantine rules. Dallas argues, but Ripley is technically in charge with him and Kane off-ship. Science officer Ash, played by Ian Holm, lets them in anyway and later says that he simply forgot about the quarantine rule and Ripley’s status.
The alien — often referred to as a “facehugger” in pop culture — has a long tail that has wrapped itself around Kane’s neck, and trying to remove it will kill him. Thankfully, it also put Kane to sleep. The alien later falls off, dead, and Kane wakes up and feels totally fine. The crew then has dinner together, during which Kane suddenly starts to choke and then seize.
This is the scene that has made “Alien” so incredibly iconic: the “chestburster” scene. Blood sprays out of Kane’s chest and a little wormlike alien shoots out, shrieks and then runs off. Kane is dead. This little “chestburster” later grows into the large, scary xenomorph that haunts the ship and later kills the crew.
If Kane is dead, you’d probably assume that the main character is actually Dallas, which makes sense considering Skerritt’s name shows up first in the opening credits. He also looks the part of a hero, with a scruffy Han Solo look about him. However, following the death of engineer Brett, played by Harry Dean Stanton, Dallas dies third.
Our main character and the hero of this story is Ripley, which is my favorite writing choice of all time. If Ash had listened to her, no one would’ve died aside from Kane. However, the film always pushes her to the back of the scene, until the third act begins after Dallas’ death. She goes from afterthought to hero very fast. And she has great hair!
Ripley is also the one who uncovers the movie’s big secret. Once Dallas is dead, Ripley has access to Mother and learns about Special Order 937: In the event of an alien aboard the ship, it must be kept alive to be returned to Earth, “crew expendable.” The only other person on the ship who knows about this is Ash, who attacks Ripley and tries to kill her when she learns the truth.
We learn that Ash is an android, sent by the ship’s company to ensure that the ship would find an alien to bring back. Engineer Parker, played by Yaphet Kotto, and Lambert jump in to save Ash, and they destroy him. Parker and Lambert unfortunately die later on, but Ripley and the cat — named Jonesy — survive via escape pod.
Despite all these reveals, there’s one that not every viewer may catch on to: “Alien” is about rape. And it’s overt.
The movie has a lot of feminine symbols. The computer is named “Mother,” the alien egg opens like a flower, the alien is born from Kane’s chest, the crew is born from their sleeping pods and there are plenty more examples. The movie also has two moments of what I’m going to call thematic rape.
Kane is attacked by a “facehugger” alien that implants a “chestburster” inside him through his mouth. He’s essentially raped, has an unwanted pregnancy and is then killed by said pregnancy. Ash later refers to the alien as “Kane’s son.” This isn’t the movie’s most uncomfortable scene.
When Ash attacks Ripley, it’s clear his android nature gives him the strength to win any physical battle. Instead of snapping her neck, he pushes her down, rolls up a magazine and tries to stuff it down her throat to choke her. It’s very unsettling and I honestly hate it, but it makes so much sense for the context of the film.
“Thirty-four percent of U.S. women say they worry ‘frequently’ or ‘occasionally’ about being sexually assaulted,” a 2016 Gallup poll said, compared to five percent of men.
Following that same thought process, the movie doesn’t end when Ripley and Jonesy’s escape pod rockets off into space. The xenomorph has sneaked aboard. This also means a hidden, unseen presence is on the ship, waiting while Ripley changes into a separate suit for cryo-sleep. She ends up ejecting it, yet it’s still a scene where a monster lies in wait while a vulnerable, unknowing woman simply goes about her business.
“Alien” is also about capitalism. The ambiguous company, Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which isn’t named out loud until the sequel movie, “Aliens,” replaced a human science officer with a robot that they could control. They were willing to sacrifice six human lives in the hopes of getting their hands on an alien.
When Dallas announces the existence of the distress signal, Parker argues that they should ignore it. The Nostromo is a commercial ship, he argues, and he’s doing this job for the money. It’s not their responsibility. Ash interjects and tells the group that responding to a signal of that kind is written into their contract. Failure to do so will mean the crew will receive no payment for any of their work. This is predatory.
In my opinion, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation is the villain, even if it isn’t classically scary. And it doesn’t have to be. It’s the outcome of the villain’s actions that leads to the true horror of “Alien.”
The xenomorph in “Alien” is horrifying and murderous, but it’s just doing what it was born to do, and the same goes for Ash. They’re villains, but their villainy isn’t a choice. The real villain is the mysterious unnamed company that pulls the strings and engineers the death of six people. Thankfully, they only got five.