Why is the horror and gore in Ridley Scott‘s sci-fi horror masterpiece, Alien, so compelling? So fascinating? The film has become a classic that people return to. Are its fans sadists, reveling in seeing people hunted and mutilated? Or maybe masochists? If Aristotle were to sit down with a bucket of buttered popcorn in a crowded movie theater to see this film, his answer would be “neither”. He would observe something more mysterious and transformative going on with the film’s audience.
When Alien debuted in 1979, it was the era of George Lucas’ Star Wars and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which blockbuster aliens were mostly good-humored sidekicks like Chewbacca or benevolent, awe-inspiring visitors who filled the night sky with childlike color and music. Alien promised something entirely different. One producer, looking back at the early days of the film shoot, said, “If Star Wars was The Beatles, we wanted to be The Rolling Stones. Nastier, dirtier, sexier.”