Midnight Marquee #78

by Gary J Svehla

Includes a study of Alien and A History of the Horror Film Portmanteau, Re: Alien: Some of us find it hard to believe that 2011 marks the 32nd anniversary of Ridley Scott’s landmark science-fiction picture, Alien, which 20th Century Fox released on May 25, 1979 (exactly two years after the studio premièred George Lucas’s phenomenal Star Wars, although it’s hard to imagine two more different s.f. movies). This article was originally presented as a paper at the Fourth International Conference on the Fantastic (Boca Raton, Florida, March 26, 1981).. Since that time, there have been some major contributions to Alien studies, including David Thomson’s book-length study, The Alien Quartet (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1999)—not to mention the commentary that can be found on the various DVD issues of the Alien films. But none has ever looked at the movie the way that “In Space, No One Can Hear Your Primal Scream” does. Thus, for the first-time publication of the complete text of this article, I have, for the most part, used as references those articles and interviews that came out shortly after the movie played theatrically, as they have the advantage of “freshness”—of being critics’ and filmmakers’ initial thoughts before the sequels and many imitations got in the way