Do you think Alien is scary?

[Janx]

yup. Alien was a well executed scary sci-fi movie. Especially for its time.

 

[SkidAce]

At the time it was released, yeah. It was insanely intense and terrifying. It was not like a classic so-called "horror" film. It got you invested in sympathetic characters and used its claustrophobic setting to maximum effect. And it had blood and guts. Not at all the same thing as Bela Lugosi and "I vant to dreenk your bloood!"

In the last 30+ years everything that made it so scary has be re-used and badly done and OVERdone. You can get the blood and guts on network TV now. Its iconic scenes are now practically comedy punchlines by comparison since even Mel Brooks spoofed it on screen.

When it first came out I went to see it with a friend who'd already seen it. HE spent the movie watching through his fingers. It was far and away more intense than anything I'd seen up to that point (next closest was probably Jaws, and no comparison) and I had to insist that he start warning me when the real scary parts were coming up. If I went to see it now for the first time having been very well inured to all of its techniques, yeah I'd say that it had a couple good "gotcha" moments but I would have likely wanted more action.

This sums it up perfectly. Thanks for saving me the typing.

 

[sabrinathecat]

The first time I watched it, no, but I was distracted.
Sat down and watched it properly, and let myself get into it, and yes, it was a nice, tension rush.

Exorcist? Pfffft. Don't know what people were going on about there. But maybe if that topic is something you believe in... (That's as much as I'm going to say for fear of the wrath of Mods)

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

The first one of the movies in the series that I saw was Aliens. I was seven when I saw it, and there were parts that were pretty intense, but not really scary. By the time I found out there was a part one, I was in my teens. I saw it, and it was a very cool movie, but not scary. Then I saw the rest of the Aliens movies and I was frightened by how anyone could have green lit that terrible garbage.

 

[MarkB]

Yeah, when I first saw the movie in my early teens it was definitely scary. I recall having a recurring dream for a couple of weeks afterwards where I imagined waking up in bed and just seeing the creature's clawed fingers wrapping over the top of the open door at the foot of my bed. Less is more even in nightmares, I guess.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, "Alien" is a fine horror movie, both in true 'horror' terms, and also in terms of 'fear' - notably that scene in the ventilation system.

"The Exorcism", by contrast, never raised more than a 'meh' from me. Probably because I was just too old and too jaded when I first saw it.

 

[Jhaelen]

I found Aliens to be much scarier than Alien, but I also saw Aliens first.

I still think Alien is a scary movie. I particularly love the last scene in the escape pod. Aliens, though, I didn't find scary at all. It's just an action flick with hordes of beasties fighting a bunch of space marines. It's still well-executed and definitely one of the better action movies, but scary it is not.

 

[Hand of Evil]

It freaked me out, it was the atmosphere and the tension. The monster kept changing and that built suspense.

 

[Mallus]

Yes.

I first saw it on HBO when I was around 11 or 12. It qualified as terrifying. One of the best, if not the best, SF horror films ever made.

Aliens is interesting -- it's not the same genre as its predecessor. It's really a Vietnam/war movie about a squad with a green CO and a tough, seasoned sergeant fighting a guerrilla enemy. It's a great, tense, action movie, but it changes the underlying metaphor.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think Jhalen's observation is spot on: the first sequel, while enjoyable, is not truly a horror flick. Rather, it's an action film that happens to be set in the same universe as Alien.