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To give a more in-depth answer than my previous response, this was a fairly lengthy script for its genre that featured Weaver in almost every scene, running her through an entire gamut of emotions both intense and subtle, along with grueling physical work, and required her to maintain a gradually developing character arc throughout the whole thing (and remember that the film was shot out of sequence!). She has to carry the entire movie on her shoulders and spin a lot of plates while doing it. That's a tall order, but she passes with such flying colors you completely overlook the "work" she's doing while watching.
And then you add on that she absolutely nails being a credible, serious action heroine (while pulling off the "blue collar everyman action hero" thing a year before Bruce Willis!) which was a hard thing for people to even envision at the time ("female action hero" was basically silly stuff like Charlie's Angels) and I have to say yeah, Sigourney Weaver fully earned that Oscar nom.
It was a pretty badass and memorable moment, so I can't say it bothered me at all, really.
And, no, it wasn't a plot hole.
I have to agree. This movie was quite "PC" for the time.
"the bad guy dies at the end of an 80s action movie" really isn't a spoiler.
Haha, I read that script and I remember enjoying it quite a bit. It's basically hillbillies versus Aliens.
I'll grant that it was too early in the series to be doing something that goofy, but they probably could've went there with, say, one of the Alien Vs. Predator movies.
I think pretty much all the people of color in this movie are half white, so I'll venture to say that no I don't think it's against miscegenation.
The cinematography is pretty good all things considered, it's just a drab, cramped setting that looks like it'd be a nightmare to get proper lighting and camera angles in. Some of the later scenes when it gets much darker look more impressive.
Friday the 13th is mostly patterned after the beginning of Halloween, extrapolating the opening scene into a full feature film. The killer is kept out of camera view (often through POV shots) in order to hide the twist that the killer is a member of an unexpected demographic (a young boy in Halloween; a middle aged lady in Friday the 13th). The killer is also stalking teens who are having sex instead of watching the children they're supposed to be responsible for (babysitters in Halloween; camp counselors in Friday the 13th) on a distinctive and spooky day of the year.
Also, every slasher movie is a ripoff of every other slasher movie, just like every action movie is a ripoff, every romantic comedy is a ripoff, etc. "Genre" is just a nice word for "ripoff." It's best not to get too hung up on claims of a work being a ripoff, because anything that fits into a genre (subgenres especially) is consciously ripping off something else. It's why they call it "genre work."
Her supersonic whistle notes are fine, it's the gospel-like power "belting" vocals that she struggles with these days.
Spoiler
Yes.
To me it felt like the producers knew they were making an exploitation flick but managed to snag some genuine talet both in front and behind the camera by claiming it was a legit period drama, lol!
Limiting it to first appearances I'd give it to Laurie Strode, but the Halloween sequels make her more and more of a nervous wreck to the point ridiculousness.
Including followup appearances it's definitely Sidney. It's interesting to note that when we first see her she's already something of a survivor, having dealt with the murder of her mother. I also love how especially after the initial trilogy it's apparent that Sidney has more or less completely moved on from all the murders and that overall they've long since stopped being what she's shaped her life around. They're just, like, these annoying events she has to deal with every few years.
No, but it's interesting to look at the series and note how the pathology of the Scream villains resembles mass shooters, and domestic terrorists (like highway snipers and the unabomber) more than they do serial killers.
The first Halloween is all about Michael Myers punishing babysitters who ditch the children so they can drink, party, and have sex. John Carpenter and the rest of the filmmakers quickly abandoned this motif due to criticism over starting the "sex equals death" trope.
Maybe Michael Myers isn't literally thinking "babysitters, babysitters, must kill babysitters," but he's definitely going after people who remind him of his sister (mostly babysitters), because she was a really bad babysitter.
People need to understand this: in the 90s the conventional thinking was that "dark thrillers" like Seven and Silence of the Lambs could more or less replace horror in the mainstream (in fact, the initial ad campaign for Scream made it look more like a thriller than an out-and-out slasher film), and that the future of "horror-horror" was to become a sub-industry of niche direct-to-video movies like porn.
Look at the press interviews filmmakers of horror-adjacent movies did in the 90s, they all begin by insisting they were not making a "horror movie" but rather a mystery thriller/ dark comedy/ gothic drama, etc. etc.
That all finally ended after Scream. It absolutely saved horror.
You wouldn't necessarily have to land and actually go around walking. You could enter orbit and use satellite imaging to at least verify the existence of the derelict spacecraft.
If I recall, she was an air force brat and her family was only living in the UK temporarily. In the US you pretty much gotta reside in LA or NY if you really want to break into the movie business. So by the time she could be independent she'd just found different interests by then.
That little head tilt she does before blasting all the alien eggs with the flamethrower was deserving of a nomination all on its own.
Jesus does die on the cross in this movie...
Depends on the country. Some places it was December 1980, others, including the US, were 1981.