SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY DVDs selected by Peace & Freedom Press in association with Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Alien [1979]

Peace & Freedom Press Comments on Alien
One of those movies which drifts along, and then, before you know it, an alien comes out of John Hurt's stomach! One of the most frightening of any alien creations in the history of cinema. - Paul Rance.

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Amazon.co.uk Alien Review
By transplanting the classic haunted house scenario into space, Ridley Scott, together with screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, produced a work of genuinely original cinematic sci-fi with Alien that, despite the passage of years and countless inferior imitations, remains shockingly fresh even after repeated viewing. Scott's legendary obsession with detail ensures that the setting is thoroughly conceived, while the Gothic production design and Jerry Goldsmith's wonderfully unsettling score produce a sense of disquiet from the outset: everything about the spaceship Nostromo--from Tupperware to toolboxes-seems oddly familiar yet disconcertingly ... well, alien.

Nothing much to speak of happens for at least the first 30 minutes, and that in a way is the secret of the film's success: the audience has been nervously peering round every corner for so long that by the time the eponymous beast claims its first victim, the release of pent-up anxiety is all the more effective. Although Sigourney Weaver ultimately takes centre-stage, the ensemble cast is uniformly excellent. The remarkably low-tech effects still look good (better in many places than the CGI of the sequels), while the nightmarish quality of H.R. Giger's bio-mechanical creature and set design is enhanced by camerawork that tantalises by what it doesn't reveal.

On the DVD: The director, audibly pausing to puff on his cigar at regular intervals, provides an insightful commentary which, in tandem with superior sound and picture, sheds light into some previously unexplored dark recesses of this much-analysed, much-discussed movie (why the crew eat muesli, for example, or where the "rain" in the engine room is coming from). Deleted scenes include the famous "cocoon" sequence, the completion of the creature's insect-like life-cycle for which cinema audiences had to wait until 1986 and James Cameron's Aliens. Isolated audio tracks, a picture gallery of production artwork and a "making of" documentary complete a highly attractive DVD package. --Mark Walker

Alien Synopsis
A team of astronauts on their way home stumble upon an alien that has never been seen before... The nightmare begins...

Dozens of science fiction/fantasy related DVDs on one page! (Amazon.co.uk)
Dozens of science fiction related DVDs on one page! (Amazon.com)

Harry Potter DVDs, Books, Audiobooks
The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy CDs

booksmusicfilmsTV.com/Peace & Freedom Press Classic Science Fiction & Fantasy Film Reviews

Gladiator Goldfinger King Kong Planet Of The Apes Silent Running Sleeper
When The Wind Blows The Wicker Man Yellow Submarine

Brian Aldiss Books (Brian Aldiss Poetry page) Astronomy and Space Books Doctor Who Books Terry Pratchett Books William Shatner Star Trek Books Jules Verne Books H.G. Wells Books

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