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Parker's Blues (Alien and the Nemesis)

Part I

By Kendall Defoe Published 2 years ago Updated 12 months ago 5 min read
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Note: this was originally written in September of 2009... No chance getting it published then, so...

It is a strange time to be a fan of horror films. After September 11th, the media informed us that the age of irony (in American life, as has to be said) was over and that films would have to deal with cold facts and unpleasant truths in a manner supposedly unseen in recent American films. The press was apparently referring to the brilliant slew of films which arose in the shadow of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, hippies, recreational drug use, cults, the counterculture and Watergate. After almost three years after the fact, 9/11 is still firmly rooted in the psyche of the west, yet our films have not followed suit. We still have the blockbusters like Spider-Man, Transformers, and Fantastic Four in crowded cineplexes and Hollywood is pursuing a business-as-usual path. This is not to ignore some of the great “small” films that have gained notice in the press, such as American Splendor, Lost in Translation, Thirteen, and Saved! which have their own particular means of truth-telling or authenticity. They capture the obsessive nature of a culture and the need to see oneself as one actually is: ordinary, lost and unsure of where we stand.

But why horror films, exactly? In the best examples of that genre, they provide the same sort of mirror to their age as seen in so-called important movies. The nineteen-fifties introduced the sci-fi monster movie filled with nuclear accidents, uncontrollable experiments and a vision of places beyond the flatness of that decade’s conservatism. From this point, the jump to the seventies can only be explained through the drama of the decade that preceded it. The sixties – and by that term I mean the years between 1963 and 1975 – was filled with various changes and unforeseen upheavals that instantly dated the work of directors just a decade ago. Only Hitchcock and Roman Polanski captured the new sense of dread and unease in the west with films like Psycho, The Birds, Repulsion, and Rosemary’s Baby. Safe middle-class issues were now jettisoned; authority figures were challenged. The freedoms allowed on the screen would reach a strange peak with the first great possession films of the seventies – The Exorcist and The Omen, two films rooted in the idea of an evil force that was recognizable and yet mysterious (everyone had their own notion of the Devil before those films cemented images in the mind). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one of the classics of a new genre known as the “slasher” film, introduced Leatherface, to be followed by Michael Myers (Halloween) and Jason (the Friday the 13th franchise). There was once again a recognizable evil, but one that did not appear to be based in religion or myth. It came straight from the culture which wanted to see its own fears and dread placed on the silver screen.

This brings us to Alien, which closed the decade on a note of low optimism as to what to expect from other imagined worlds. The contrast with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars was sharp and unforgiving. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas wanted to imagine the best of several worlds and to portray a faith in extraterrestrials as agents of benevolent change. Ridley Scott brought home the nightmare that was a part of the experience of watching the monster films of the fifties and tied it into the paranoia and excess of his time.

It is still a great film, despite all of the reassessments which have taken place since its re-release in theatres after twenty-four years (an odd time for celebrating its anniversary). Critics who watched the first release were correct in referring to the scarceness of background information on the characters and the problem of believing in the manner in which they attempt to hunt the monster. One interesting review made a point of complaining about the unnecessary amount of drool released by the monster and how it was actually searching for a bib when it began to feast on the ship’s crew. These issues may not be in the layman’s mind when first seeing the film as all of the attention is consumed by the claustrophobic set design, disturbing music score and the visual effects which are still worth mentioning. The alien, created by Swiss artist H. R. Giger, was made using actual bones and with the intention that it would seem to be more suited to that cramped ship than any of the other humans on board (and lacking in a personality, it is an ideal match). When looking through all of the players, personality seems to go only halfway with any of them. As mentioned earlier, a lack of background detail is quite frustrating while watching the film. It is only through spare comments and quick recognition of certain relationships that the viewer learns anything about these people as they return from a cargo haul on board the Nostromo. This is why the character of Parker becomes more striking after repeated viewings. He is the only one on board who seems driven and determined to be himself with a personality uniquely his own. We should be rooting for him to survive.

Horror is indeed a broad genre with a telling evolution. Being accustomed to films such as The Innocents, The Haunting ('63), and the first Halloween, I was disappointed when I recently sampled P2 and The Orphanage, to find out today's "gore free" horror flicks are anything but.

Alien is a good film. Though it does lack character development -- tossing in Jones the cat seemed a poor stab at allowing a character to display compassion -- it doesn't fail to capture and sustain your interest, as do most movies with poorly developed characters. Its social commentary is equally intriguing.

To be continued...

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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Kendall Defoe

Teacher, reader, writer, dreamer... I am a college instructor who cannot stop letting his thoughts end up on the page.

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