Ridley Scott’s Alien Is Coming to Netflix

Science fiction and horror blend naturally. Both genres regularly send characters into the unknown to face bizarre threats, explaining the lasting appeal of films like Cloverfield and A Quiet Place. Yet the standard for both genres remains the 1979 classic Alien, which arrives on Netflix on September 1.

Directed by Ridley Scott, Alien takes place in the year 2122 aboard a deep-space commercial vessel. The crew rests in stasis until a distress beacon from a nearby moon awakens them. After landing to investigate, they find a derelict spacecraft containing large, mysterious eggs. When Kane (John Hurt) inspects one of the eggs, a spider-like parasite latches onto his face. The crew rushes back to the ship, but their attempts to remove the creature fail. The parasite eventually detaches on its own, and Kane appears unharmed.

During a crew meal shortly after, a creature violently bursts from Kane’s chest, killing him before disappearing into the dark corridors of the ship. The rapidly growing organism soon begins hunting the remaining crew members one by one.

What is Alien about?

The mixing of science fiction and horror traces back to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein. Even so, Alien stands out as a landmark because Ridley Scott combined classic haunted house mechanics with pioneering creature and production design.

At its foundation, the film operates as both a monster movie and a haunted house thriller. Characters try to survive against an unseen predator in an environment where the dark, industrial interior of the spaceship Nostromo substitutes for a haunted manor.

A straightforward narrative structure gives the ensemble cast room to breathe. The film originally presents itself as a collective effort led by prominent 1970s character actors, with Tom Skerritt positioned as the apparent lead. As the body count rises, Sigourney Weaver emerges as the true protagonist. Placing a resilient woman at the center of the story was uncommon for the era, and Scott helped turn Weaver into a major star.

The haunting imagery of Alien

Instead of presenting a sleek or romanticized vision of the future, Alien showcases a grimy, utilitarian environment. While the 1977 release of Star Wars introduced a lived-in aesthetic, Alien pushed the concept further by making space travel feel oppressive, mechanical, and intensely claustrophobic.

The centerpiece of the film remains the creature itself. Swiss artist H. R. Giger designed the Xenomorph, combining biomechanical textures with unsettling forms to create a monster unlike anything audiences had seen before.

In a 2018 interview with Yahoo!, Scott reflected on discovering Giger’s art:

In my career, which has been pretty long, there’s only been, with the greatest respect for the people I’ve worked with, two real, real originals. Funnily enough, I came across a guy called H. R. Giger and if I hadn’t got that monster, you would not have had that movie. I saw the drawing – the drawing was drawn for the book, not the film – and I was so kind of taken, I flew to Switzerland where he lived because he didn’t want to get the plane as he was scared of flying. I met him in Zurich at his home and I persuaded him to travel by train to come to England and live at Shepperton studios for ten months. And he did.

Scott underscored the artist’s importance to the final cut:

It wouldn’t have been the same movie. Whilst the cast was wonderful, with Sigourney [Weaver] and Harry [Dean Stanton] and those people, but without that eighth passenger it wouldn’t have been the same film.

The success of the original movie launched multiple sequels and crossovers. James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, Aliens, stands as the only other entry in the series to receive widespread critical acclaim, though Cameron leaned heavily toward action. Regardless of how the franchise evolved, Giger’s creature remains most effective when stalking the shadows of a pure horror film.

Alien begins streaming on Netflix on September 1.

Source: Polygon