Alien is still creepy, even made out of cardboard

By Reid McCarter  |  June 15, 2020 | 3:25pm
Aux Features Film
Alien is still creepy, even made out of cardboard
Screenshot: Cardboard Movie Co.

It’s a testament to the talent and vision of Alien’s creators that it remains such an absorbing, frightening movie even when certain scenes have a way of reminding the viewer that the dreaded xenomorph is actually just a guy in a rubbery monster suit. Alien’s whole construction is so strong, really, that it manages to stay creepy no matter what you do to it, from staging it as a high school play or turning it into an AMSR video to, as the shoestring-budget filmmakers at Cardboard Movie Co. have just shown, remaking the film out of whatever junk’s lying around the house.

Sure, the “low-budget remake” has to goop up its mysterious extraterrestrial eggs with what looks like toothpaste rather than sheep intestines and its version of the facehugger, slimy tail now constructed out of a vacuum hose, loses a bit of its menace here. But, still, for as ramshackle as Cardboard Movie’s production is, its version of Alien remains suitably gross and spooky.

Check out their version of the “chestburster,” for example. Even voiced by a woman making funny alien noises, it’s still viscerally uncomfortable to watch a fangy wet noodle bust out of a dude’s sternum, dripping with gore. And its low-rent xenomorph, impressively built out of lots of cardboard, manages to be spooky by virtue of replicating the movie’s shots well enough to capture its sense of dread.

Really, Alien seems like it can stand up to any level of joke-y staging and still be at least a little bit scary. If you don’t believe us, consider that this is the same series that once rose to the challenge of turning a cute dog into a slavering hellbeast.

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