As you stare at the TV screen, engrossed, a respectable looking man in a tweed suit walks into shot and turns to camera.

Scientists have yet to determine the age of the craft, or who created it. What they suspect is…hold on…it looks like the first team is returning, perhaps they can…oh…I think somebody is hurt. Dave, cut it there, we’ll do some interviews once we find out what’s happened.

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That’s all there is.

Willa steps into the room. The TV screen has turned to static.

Local kid found that tape floating in the brook just east of town. Strange thing is, nobody has any idea where that was filmed. Oh the island is small, but it’s also big at the same time, like a scrunched up piece of paper. You never know what’s hiding round the next bend.

So! How do you like your eggs?

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The story of Alien follows the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial towing vessel. The ship intercepts a signal from a nearby planet and the crew heads down to the surface to investigate. Once there they discover an alien craft with an organism onboard, an organism which soon has the crew fighting for their lives.

I don’t remember how old I was when I first saw Alien. It was certainly when I was younger than the film’s 18 rating, likely watching a late night TV edit, but I didn’t care, and probably wasn’t aware, I just knew it by reputation. This was one of those films that everyone had to have seen, you were a real grown up if you could say that.

Since then I’ve seen Alien an unknown number of times in various forms, cut for TV, uncut and finally the Director’s Cut. This is one of those films that I’m very happy to own on Blu-Ray, it’s a beautiful film with a stunning sense of enormous scale and claustrophobia at the same time. The iconic look of the alien and its surroundings is the work of Swiss artist H.R. Giger. The organic but, well alien, look of his designs adds hugely to the feeling of unease and fear we get from the alien itself. The design is so important to the film that it’s one of those, sadly rare, times when the average viewer is aware of who created it.

Every time I watch Alien, I’m reminded how timeless it is. Partly this is due to its sci-fi future setting but mostly for me it’s because the film is so tight, it’s so focused on the small crew of the Nostromo and we are so engaged and on edge for almost the entire film, that we don’t have time for reflecting on the depiction of computers or characters’ hairstyles. All of that other stuff becomes iconic and I feel myself believing that it’s entirely what things could look like in the early 22nd century (The far future setting certainly helps as it’s a long time before anybody’s going to be able to call Ridley Scott out on that.)

So hey, this is a horror review, is Alien a horror? As a whole series I think it becomes a matter of opinion and certainly varies a little by film, but this film? Damn straight it’s a horror, it just happens to be set in space. Alien, when you really break it down, is a slasher film. A group of people, being hunted down and taken out one by one by a seemingly unstoppable foe. Slasher, and a terrifying one at that. The claustrophobic setting of the Nostromo, the body horror, the excellent creature effects, the eerie score, and the superb acting keep you paranoid and in suspense for most of the film.

I was going to point out a few stand out members of the cast, but that would be doing a disservice to the others. They are all excellent, from the comic relief (Well as much as a film like Alien allows it) duo of Harry Dean Stanton’s Brett and Yaphet Kotto’s Parker. To Sigourney Weaver’s no nonsense Ellen Ripley, they all do their part to immerse you in the film’s universe and make it real to you. The Alien itself is a true monster, it’s both beautiful and repulsive at the same time, a marvel of design with a reproductive cycle to keep you awake at night.

All of these things come together to create something very special and that’s why I’m (unsurprisingly I imagine) going to award Alien, 5 Rolled up Magazines out of 5. This is a true masterpiece, a candidate not just for best sci-fi horror, but for one of the best films period. A film which stands the test of time and feels as new as the day it was released, but then you don’t need me to tell you that, you’ve seen it, right?

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**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW **WARNING**

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Welcome to the spoiler section. This is the part where I can bring up some specific parts of the film which I’d like to talk about more, whether they be good, or bad.

So now that the 3 people who haven’t seen Alien have left the room let’s indulge in some specifics, starting with the iconic Chestburster scene. This scene is fantastic, the mood of the film turns lighter briefly with Kane seemingly fully recovered from his ordeal with the face hugger, everyone’s smiling and joking when suddenly Kane starts convulsing. The crew hold him down and we meet the alien for the first time as it bursts bloodily from Kane’s chest. It’s so visceral and such a contrast to the relaxed feeling moments before that it continues to be shocking with every watch.

Another sequence of the film I love, and one which shows that Alien isn’t just a one trick pony, is the scene where Dallas is crawling around in the air ducts trying to flush the alien out. The paranoia and the claustrophobia in this scene are intense. Every junction in the ducts has multiple directions the alien could come from and the crew’s simple tracking device does nothing to ease the tension. In the end it’s a simple jump scare, but it works.

Let’s talk about Ash. He could just have been a particularly zealous crew member. He could have been a character who was killed for his error of overriding Ripley and bringing Kane back onto the ship, that could have been the limit of his involvement. Many films would have done that. Not here. Having Ash turn out to be an Android, and one programmed to make sure the alien is recovered, crew expendable, really comes out of nowhere. We’re busy worrying about where the alien is and who it’s going to kill next when suddenly there’s another threat, one which we had no idea about, we didn’t even know Androids were a thing! Ian Holm is fantastic and somehow manages to make a scene where he tries to kill Ripley with a rolled up magazine scary, rather than ridiculous.

Ripley has a reputation for being a bit of a badass, but that mostly comes from the sequels, here she’s more of a hardass. She’s far from being a damsel in distress but she’s certainly terrified by her situation and to be honest it’s another thing that I love about this film. She isn’t a superhero, she’s just doing the best she can and keeps her head when those around her are panicking. Ultimately she defeats the alien, blasting it out into space, but it feels like a desperate fight for survival rather than plot armoured inevitability.

Whether you prefer this, or its admittedly excellent sequel Aliens (That’s usually the extent of it, I don’t know many people claiming it’s Alien: Resurrection) this is where it all began and where many other films in the sci-fi horror sub-genre got their inspiration.

This is Emma, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.