Alien

I feel like I must've written about Alien before, especially for the Halloween themed posts I used to do, but nope. Never the original anyway. Which is odd, because along with the Terminator series, it's probably my favorite film series. I even love and appreciate the flawed-or-downright-awful entries, like Alien: Resurrection, Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem and Terminator: Salvation.

On a side note, if odd numbered Star Trek films are always the bad ones, I think subtitled instead of numbered Alien and Terminator films are always the bad ones. This is why Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines is only half awesome and half awful, because it has a number and a subtitle. Hmm, wait, Terminator 2 had a subtitle, too. But I digress.

All I really want to do today, since so many others have covered this movie exhaustively in so many other reviews and essays of the film, is talk about how I think H.R. Giger's design for the adult alien creature is the most original in any medium, ever. Certainly Star Trek and Star Wars have some great ideas, even some that aren't humanoid. Yet Giger's alien, based heavily on his painting Necrom IV (above; which inspired director Ridley Scott to contact him in the first place), is so nightmarish and, well, alien looking, that even now, having seen the shit out of these creatures in well lit shots in other movies, the original Alien film has the power to transfix and terrify me. Even when I can frame-by-frame an HD version of it, it still isn't quite clear in enough of the frames to get a really good idea of just what the hell it is.

I would rant about how CGI ruined movies like this for me since for some reason my brain knows the monsters aren't "real" yet old, primitive practical effects in the first three Alien films still creep me out...even stuff like John Carpenter's The Thing is still creepy for this reason...but I'd just be ranting. You should still go check out some more of Giger's stuff, if only his published sketches/designs for the series and other movies he worked on.

Halloween: Film Round-Up 2

Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

The word 'requiem' is used in reference to a ceremony to honor and memorialize the dead, which is I hope some indication that they're going to put the Alien, Predator, and Alien Vs. Predator franchises to bed until someone who knows what they're doing and what people want from these films comes along. I'll be posting a longer review of this film at some point, but suffice it to say that Requiem does the seemingly impossible task of making the first AvP film look good by comparison. Requiem is, quite frankly, a piece of shit, and focuses entirely too much on humans a.k.a. the thing the audience cares least about. At one point I wondered if I had accidentally been given a DVD boxset of The O.C. because Requiem spent more time on tiresome humans than it did either of the titular creatures. Here's a hint for future films: if you're going to insist on making the movies about humans, set it in the future and give us the damn Colonial Marines already.

Godzilla 2000 (2000)

Though I know I fanatically saw this ASAP when it came out, being the huge Godzilla fan I was, it's striking how little of this movie I remembered when watching it a few days ago. It has been eight years, true, but funnily enough I think I appreciate it more now. It really is a 'good' Godzilla movie instead of a 'cheesy good' Godzilla movie. Moreover, it redeemed the monster in the eyes of the world after America nearly ruined it forever with the 1998 abomination. At any rate, Godzilla 2000 is an surprisingly smart monster movie that contains an interesting plot arc that doesn't reveal a giant monster for Godzilla to fight until the last 20 minutes or so of the film. Though I've heard that the Godzilla flicks of the 90s and others from the 00s are better than this, I haven't seen most of them, and the few I have I barely remember. Whatever. Godzilla 2000 is great.

Black Sheep (2007)

No, not that movie. This one is an awesome New Zealand horror movie that serves as a reminder that New Zealand actually has a long history of gore-fests. More than a few directed by Peter Jackson, incidentally, who would go on to charm the world with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Anyway, the movie has a wonderful free-wheeling sense of humor (not unlike Slither from my last Halloween round-up) and concerns genetically engineered sheep who crave flesh and turn people into giant were-sheep when bitten. I tip my hat to the film for taking its sweet time in getting to a joke about bestiality as well as the restrained use of fart jokes throughout. You may want to watch Black Sheep with subtitles on, though, because I often had no idea what was being said, being the uncultured American I am. Still, Black Sheep is a great horror gem that deserves a wider audience.

Silent Hill (2006)

The general consensus seems to be that this movie is terrible and makes no sense. However, I'm going to throw my hat into the ring and say that it's both one of the best videogame adaptations around and an excellent horror film at the same time. Silent Hill had the misfortune to come out during a time when the West was remaking a lot of Japanese and Korean horror films, many of which revolved around creepy little children, so posters like those above told the audience "yep, another horror film about creepy little children." However, Silent Hill is closer in spirit to the original than many of those Western remakes in the wonderful ambiguity of the entire film, particularly the ending. I may write a longer review of this film, but suffice it to say that after the third viewing Silent Hill still holds up. It has some problems--particularly in its length--but it's secretly a great horror flick. Give it another shot with an open mind.

Halloween (1978)

Later sequels have taken the mystique and originality out of this franchise. That's the first thing that comes to mind after watching this movie. As with the original Alien film, Halloween is a startlingly original creation that has the earmarks--cinematography, soundtrack, composition, and a brilliant opening sequence of a slow zoom on a jack-o-lantern--of a master filmmaker. John Carpenter's track record is spotty, but Halloween is a great one that picks up where Psycho left off, developing the "creepy, violent-but-almost-entirely-bloodless slasher flick" idea even further. Halloween has some cheap "jump out of your seat!!" scares but I find the sequences of Michael Meyers stalking the teenage girls in broad daylight endlessly affecting and memorable. Furthermore, I think the ending is one of the best in horror history because it actually wasn't intended to set up a sequel; instead it was meant to provide even more mystery about the true nature of the villain and blur the lines between his human-ness and his supernatural-ness. Halloween is a must-see, in my opinion, and a great choice for anyone who hasn't watched it but thinks they know exactly what it's going to be like because of all the sequels and imitators that followed in its wake.