From Psycho to Camp Crystal Lake -Part 3
An essay on the bloody origins of the slasher movie
Last week I covered the first Halloween movie in celebrating 65 years since Psycho, considered by many to be the original slasher movie, was released upon a terrified public and 45 years since Friday the 13th came to the big screen.
This week we’re going into deep space where no one can hear you scream in the form of the brilliant sci-fi movie which is Alien.
Unleashed in September 1979 (UK) and directed by Ridley Scott this horror classic first introduced us to the terrifying Alien species which is the Xenomorph.
The script had been circling around Hollywood but no studios were interested in it as sci fi was considered past it sell by date. It was the success of Star Wars that made 20th Century Fox sit up and take notice and as they had produced the George Lucas’ space fantasy epic- green lit the movie.
The film follows the crew of the space ship, ‘Nosromos,’ who land on a desolate planet and unwittingly bring abroad a deadly alien that wreaks havoc on the ship, killing the crew one by one.
Scott was influenced by ‘Star Wars’ with it’s futuristic-yet-grounded costume and spaceship designs.’ The visuals from 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired the look of this movie and HAL-9000, influenced ‘Mother,’ the supercomputer onboard the Nostromos.
Although some may argue that ‘Alien’ isn’t a slasher movie I beg to differ. I admit it isn’t a fully realised slasher but has a lot of the things that are contained in the genre, such as the ‘final girl,’ and a scary killer stalking and killing the cast one by one.
Feel free to leave a comment to agree or disagree and the reasons why.
The movie went through quite a few titles such as ‘Memory,’ ‘They Bite,’ and ‘Star Beast,’ before finally becoming ‘Alien.’
Several actresses auditioned for the role of Ripley including Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep but it went to an unknown actress at the time, Sigourney Weaver.
Scott said later, “Meryl will be a great actress, but Sigourney is Ripley.”
Tom Skerritt who played Captain Dallas wasn’t the first choice for the role. Harrison Ford, hot off the success of playing Han Solo in Star Wars was approached but turned it down as he was concerned about becoming only synonymous with sci fi movies. The producers asked Tommy Lee Jones too, who joked that he’d do it if he could play the alien instead.
Skerritt wasn’t keen on the idea at first as he didn’t like the script and the budget was only $2 million, so he thought it would be a cheap horror so turned the offer down. However once Scott was onboard and the budget got a healthy financial boost with the script polished up, he finally agreed to play Captain Dallas.
Scott wanted his actors to be on edge all the time and created an environment that promoted tension and paranoia among the cast.
He arranged the walls of the sets to be pushed slightly closer together each day but didn’t tell the cast he was doing it.
To create even more tension between the characters Scott got Yaphet Kotto and Ian Holm to antagonise Sigourney Weaver on the set. During the scene between their characters where they hatch a plan, between each take Kotto would tell Waver, “Come on sister, you gotta gimme more than that,” until eventually we get the pissed off response we see from her in the movie.
Writers Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett had the idea of an alien on board a space ship terrorisng the crew. But the question was how could it get on board? The idea of the face hugger came to Shusett one night as he woke in a cold sweat. He called O’Bannon immediately and said, “I’ve got it. The alien jumps on one of their faces and fucks them!” O’Bannon replied, “my god, that’s it, we’ve got the movie.”
They did research into insects and took inspiration from braconid wasps which lay their eggs in caterpillars before their young burst out of them-yuck!
Arguably the most famous scene in the entire movie is the chest busting scene when Kane, played by John Hurt has a baby alien burst out of his chest during dinner.
To create more shock reactions Scott kept most of the cast in the dark about what was going to happen. The script just said that something would come out of Kane’s chest but, other than Hurt none of the other actors knew anything else.
This great effect was achieved by creating a fake torso on the table and Hurt under it. He than put his head and arms through holes in the table so it looked like a whole body. The fake torso was packed with animal guts and a small compressed cannon. On activating the cannon the torso burst open, blood and guts going everywhere and then pushing the alien puppet up from under the table.
So that reaction from actress Veronica Cartwright when her character, Lambert is sprayed with blood wasn’t acting it was real.
Sigourney Weaver admitted she thought Hurt was actually dying but only stayed in character due to the simple fact that no one had said “cut.”
The most extreme reaction was from Kotto who went home that night and locked himself in the bathroom and refused to talk to his wife for 4 hours until he’d calmed down enough from the whole terrifying ordeal.
The design of the Xenomorph was by surrealist Swiss artist, H.R. Giger and the original concept was to have it transparent and its head full of living maggots. However this proved too challenging so they changed it to the design that we know today.
Originally the face huggers were to be green but when Dan O’Bannon saw the unpainted face hugger model, he loved the white flesh-type colour and asked for it to be kept that way.
Giger’s illustrations had an issue getting through U.S. customs as when he sent over the first designs of the face hugger, custom officials were so shocked by what they saw that they detained the illustrations.
O’Bannon had to go over to LAX to convince that they were for a horror movie. The official who met O’Bannon described the images as, “repulsive abortions.”
Scott wanted to avoid the ‘guy in a rubber suit,’ but special effects in the late 1970’s couldn’t fulfil his vision as at the time animatronics weren’t advanced enough to have a full scale moving alien.
Therefore a compromise was made by having a rubber suit and a puppet head controlled by puppeteers.
Therefore a casting call went out and a couple of suitable actors were up for the role. One was Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in Star Wars but the part went to Bolaji instead. At 7 foot 1 inch he had the imposing presence needed for the role and Scott sent him to Tai Chi and mime classes to help slow down his movements.
Scott desperate to avoid the alien just looking like a ‘guy in a rubber suit',’ that he kept his shots short and avoided showing too much of the alien. It only makes its appearance one hour into the movie and has a total of 4 minutes of screen time.
The puppet head had over 900 working parts to it and the team of puppeteers could control it to move in any direction and control the alien’s lips, jaw and the inner mouth, with teeth that shot out.
The front part of the head was made from a cast of a real human skull, the slime that drips from its mouth was KY jelly and shredded condoms were used to create the tendons on its jaws.
The face hugger that Ash autopsies later on in the movie was a model filled with oysters and sheep kidney for the internal organs. Also the egg that contained the face hugger that attacks Kane, was made by using cattle hearts and stomachs and a sheep’s intestine.
Scott originally wanted another ending where the alien kills Ripley by ripping her head off and than it would sit in her chair and start talking in Captain Dallas’ voice and saying, “I’m signing off, hopefully the network will pick me up.”
Hearing what Scott had planned for the ending a studio executive from Fox arrived on set and told Scott he’d be fired on the spot if he went through with this ending, rather than seeing the alien getting killed instead.
Scott admits in hindsight that killing the alien instead of Ripley was a better choice in the end.
Next week the 4th and final instalment in this series will cover Friday the 13th.
Jason Duck 2025
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