'Alien' is, from my view, the single scariest movie ever put to 8mm film. It scared me more than any other film, and to this day continues to scare me.
The entire film has so much dark and tense atmosphere it's hard to relax at any point, the claustrophobic ship is suffocating in how cramped it looks, and overall the ideas of the film are simply horrifying.
The scariest thing on 8mm is probably the Zapruder film.
Alien was shot on 35mm (but the quality is so good it looks like 65mm. Damn, Vanlint, you really knew your job).
Besides that, I agree with your post.
I'm just on my way up to Clavius.
I agree with much of your post but I found the film designed to make you relax at certain points, such as when they're all eating at the table prior to Kane's chestburster. The living quarters are deliberately bright and clinical- there's no sense danger will happen there until it does- and the full grown Alien never attacks them in bright places. With the attention to everything in this film, it might not be a coincidence that the newborn chestburster is practically the same colour as the banal, beige, living quarters. It's as if the banality of evil has come for them. To me, it's a two fingered punk salute to the assumptions of the 1970s in general with its belief that progress in science would of benefit to mankind.
I've thought for a long time that there are a handful of horror movies that are in a class by themselves and Alien is one of them. It really has everything that a great horror movie should have. In a short time period you had at least three that were really good and have stood out. There was Alien, the 1982 version of The Thing, and what I think is the scariest made for TV horror movie, Dark Night of the Scarecrow in 1981.
shareI wrote my original post when I was bored at work so I didn't have much time, but I agree with your point.
The film provides numerous scenes set in brightly-lit areas to give you a false sense of security, and then it rips it away just when you feel most comfortable. It's incredible how clever it is.
The scariest for me was Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein. Couldn't sleep that night with the monster lurking in the dark corners of my bedroom. I was eight.
shareExactly.
I love how scary it is even before anything horrible happens.
I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me to see me looking back at you
I agree with you. I was thinking how terrifying it must've been to be aboard the ship with the alien which didn't look all that big. And there's no chance of escape because of how isolated it as. On Earth you can run just about anywhere. So for me, keeping that in mind made the movie a lot scarier and I was glad I wasn't in the situation of the characters.
shareYeah, it's an awesome movie.
shareMy top five:
1. Psycho
2. Jaws
3. Alien
4. The Shining
5. Halloween
I'm not sure about best ever but its up there for sure.
shareI don't find this type of horror slightest bit scary. I'm not sure it would even cross my mind to classify it as horror. The best horror film for me would have to be some psychological horror. The Innocents maybe?
shareSo to you, there's nothing scary about being in a big, yet tight, pitch-black location, with lots of hidey-holes and tunnels for some monster to hide in, which is so non-human you don't even know what it looks like?
shareSure, there is potential for it to work but it didn't work for me (in the sense of being scary) I was more of a detached observer admiring the sets and photography.
There was none of that hair-raising effect that good psychological horror can give me.
Fair play, horror and fear are subjective. It's just how 'Alien' works is something of a primal fear, the fear of danger in the dark
shareFair play, horror and fear are subjective.
It's probably since it's fear is the same kind as that of 'Alien'. Personally I also love 'The Haunting', since again it's about an unknown danger stalking you, adn you have no way of knowing what it is, how to escape it, or if you're EVER safe.
shareYes, I don't get Trax's comment either. In fact, it can only make me think that they have little empathy , like Ash. This film is proper gothic level horror art.
shareStephen King, widely regarded as the king of horror, said it is a horror movie.
Good enough for me.
If those pen pushers up at city hall don't like it,well, they swivel on this middle digit!