For me films become less scary naturally the more times you watch them but in terms of the Alien prequels explaining the origins and therefore weakening how scary this movie is, I wouldn't say it's made it less scary. Less mysterious maybe. I tried to avoid thinking about the ridiculous input that Prometheus and Covenant had towards the origins of the xenomorph and the space jockey in a recent watch of Alien. Sadly when the space jockey and alien egg scenes came up, scenes that always used to thrill me for their mystery and made me imagine where they came from, I was now forced to think about some giant white bald bodybuilders wearing space uniforms and an evil android called David.
They have indeed ruined part of what made Alien great but on its own terms it still creates the horror aspects very effectively. Whatever Ridley Scott shat out in his prequels, it doesn't detract from the claustrophobic feeling on board the Nostromo, the fantastic atmospheric set design, the largely off camera interactions the crew have with the alien that leave it to you and your imagination to conclude their fates, or the building sense of panic and helplessness felt by the crew as they get gradually wiped out 1 by 1.
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