Artist Alien

Since its sequels favor slick hardware, frenetic action, and generously muscled heroes, it’s easy to forget that Ridley Scott’s original Alien is a creepy, slow-burning, white-knuckle horror film set among blue-collar working stiffs ill-equipped to defend themselves. In this movie, it takes only a single alien to wreak havoc on the Nostromo, a commercial mining vessel summoned to investigate a mysterious signal from a nearby planet. Once there, a life form attaches itself to a crew member’s face, disappears into its human host, and makes a grisly reappearance at dinnertime, hunting a ship full of superb character actors including John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, and, of course, a resourceful Sigourney Weaver.

Updated 07/15/2009