You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you?

     Alien is a movie that couldn't exist in the modern world and by modern I mean anytime after Slasher films became the movie of the week. The reason why this movie couldn't work is the thirty minute rule. The thirty minute rule states that you have thirty minutes before people give up on a film so you better scare them by minute ten. The perfect example of this in action would be the opening of  Scream. Alien takes the opposite approach you don't see the alien until thirty minutes and nothing happens till about an hour into the film. This is a good thing because it gives you time to set up the plot and introduce that characters of your story. The problem I had with this picture is that it wasted its first hour by  not introducing the people in the story. By the end of the picture I honestly didn't care if anyone lived. the sequel to this movie titled Aliens  does a much better job at introducing us and setting up the play.
    
     
     The setting and lighting are really important to this movie. The spaces feel cramped and dark as night.This is key because its not a monster movie its a haunted house movie. The setting is top notch because you cant just leave the ship because your in space. I know its a stupid question because it would ruin the suspense but hasn't anyone heard of nightveiw goggles. I mean every movie in space is pitch black almost. I'm not complaining because I understand why it needs to be dark and all of that jazz. 

     Lets talk about the characters the alien is very cool and very fun to watch hunt off the crew. The crew itself is a bit of a mystery I don't really like any of them. I know that I should but their acting was so bland that I couldn't help myself. This movie just felt like it was missing something. I understand the importance that this film has had and I'm not denying it so I shall give it some credit but other than that I just felt kind of disappointed because this film was on a list of great movies and I was just thinking on my couch how is this on the list but the Aliens wasn't. But maybe I'm jaded from all the modern horror films I have seen.

Ebert's score 4 stars

Tyler's score 3 stars

Next time we continue to ride the horror train with the Shinning