The idea of being stalked by an unseen predator is on of the most primal fears human beings, dating back to our times as cavemen. This fear is very easy to be used in horror movies by simply shrouding your antagonist in mystery and having them kill characters one by one. Often this gets very formulaic and predictable, but if the director plays it out just right, it can create some very well crafted films.
Currently in the Sci-Fi world, few names hold as high respect as that of Ridley Scott. Not always a Sci-Fi director, Scott's first film, The Duelists, actually won best film at the the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. However inspired by Star Wars, Scott looked to take on an effects heavy film, so he took the job directing Alien. This films takes place on board a futuristic commercial spacecraft headed back to earth, during the trip the crew inspects an alien ship that is broadcasting a strange signal. During the inspection, one crew member is infected with a parasite, causing his stomach to later burst open by an escaping baby alien. From then on the alien feeds and grows, picking crew members one by one in the shadows.
Alien has become one of the most influential SciFi/Horror movies with a lot of credit to Scott's visual talent. However visuals can only take a film so far, without proper tension building, Alien would not of been as much of a success. Scott uses bluff's and long drawn out scenes to continually build up tension on the viewer. With the setting being on their own ship, the crew members own home is being invaded, the place they are supposed to feel safe is where they are now constantly at risk of there life. This creates a constant on edge vibe that reflects back at the audience.
Around the same time, another legendary director was leaving his first boot prints on the scene. In 1978 John Carpenter released Halloween, the influention slasher flick I covered in my last article. In 1982 Carpenter released released his own SciFi/Horror film, The Thing. This film is very similar to Alien (the two often pitted against each other for prominence in the genre), but at the same time stands tall on its own merits. The Thing follows the crew of an Antarctic research base that is infiltrated by a body stealing alien. Starting out in a stray dog the team takes in, the alien quickly begins to makes it's rounds through human bodies. Once the crew figures out that the alien could be inside any of them at any moment, they begin to turn each other, which only works in favor of the alien.
Both directors in these films use location of the antagonist to not only create an edge for it, but inflict a psychological terror as well. Alien's creature is crawling through there, ship, which has been their home for months. They are constantly in the presence of it, and because of the ships many crawlspaces and vents, they have no idea where it could be. This same technique is used in The Thing, but in this Film the alien is inside there literal bodies. They could be standing next to their killer, having a coffee and chat with him, and have no idea, and neither does the viewer. In my opinion this is what makes The Thing such a great film, because Carpenter keeps the audience in the dark, we share the paranoia that the protagonists feel, which forms a connection between the two. Both these films do a wonderful job creating tension that effects the viewers, and that makes them stand out among normal horror films that have something stalking a group of people. Both of these are essential viewings for the Halloween season
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