Lee Medcalf

Horrible nasty mean spirited little film that aims for the revenge exploitation b movies of the 70s, such as Straw Dogs, Last house on the left and I spit on your grave. But thanks to a rough script that boils down to “Foreigners are weird and evil” combined with a convoluted revenge plot of a jilted lover. The whole thing feels nihilistic and gratuitous in all the wrong ways. Aiming at times to show the hoary old trope of violence begets violence but in the end feeling like the writer and director just wanted to see how far they could push things for the hell of it. The result is a tasteless, pointless and narratively hollow gruelling 100 mins that just made me want to take a shower for having contributed to its viewing figures on Amazon Prime. If gonzo gratuitous rape scenes and general terrorising and sexual abuse of women is your thing then this is the movie for you. But for the rest of us who don’t need to be on some kind of law enforcement watch list I suggest you go spend 100 minutes doing something more worthwhile instead.

Absolute turd of a movie - never has a film been better titled as its a complete disaster

Starts out strong investigating the myths and origins of themes that will ultimately end up in Alien but then slowly descends in to the usual trope of talking heads telling you nothing new, with the notable exception of Dan O'Bannons wife who does cast some light on the writer, his life and his work. However, the documentaries biggest failings come in the second half when it lifts interviews wholesale from the three hour documentary found on the Alien Boxset DVD. These interviews are then composited into still frames of the Nostromos console which gives the whole documentary a sense of being a YouTube click bait film trying to avoid content ID and leaves you with a feeling that perhaps you should be watching the much more exhaustive and well made documentary sitting in your DVD collection. Finally after hand waving away the majority of the films genesis and production in a matter of minutes, the documentary examines in detail the chestburster scene. A scene so iconic that it feels like there is very little new to say about it after 40 years of analysis. Something which is borne out when you watch 45 mins of random talking heads telling you shocking "new" revelations such as the scene is a metaphor for fear of childbirth. While others try to noodle over the fact that Veronica Cartwright got a face full of blood and fell over during the filming which was kept in the film (Something Cartwright herself confirms in the documentary) For newcomers this documentary will not give you any understanding as to the phenomenon within pop culture and horror that Alien is. While for hard core fans of the film and the series, there is a lack of anything particularly new or interesting to learn unless you like listening to random people say the same old things while sitting against a black backdrop. Personally, I would recommend saving the price of a ticket, watching the three hour documentary available on the DVD and BluRay box sets and spending the money on the JW Rinzler book Making of Alien that was released recently.