15. “Alien” – The Space Jockey
For a relatively tight, focused film — only a handful of characters, and mostly set on board the Nostromo — the original “Alien” does a beautiful job of setting up a world that’s sustained seven further pictures (and almost as many again, if Ridley Scott has his way) — not just with the pleasingly blue-collar vibes of the heroes of that first film, but also a richer, deeper mythology that’s become pivotal to the last couple of films. And that mythology is born in the scene when Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Kane (John Hurt) and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) enter the horseshoe-shaped alien craft and find the body of an enormous, elephantine creature with a bursted-out chest that would become known informally as ‘the Space Jockey.’ It’s a hell of a mystery (partly because of the truly alien nature of H.R. Giger’s design here), and all the more so for being mostly backgrounded in that first film. Shame about the answer provided in “Prometheus” that the answer to ‘what is that thing?’ was ‘a giant blue guy in a helmet,’ but still.
14) “Alien: Resurrection” – The Headburster
Even by the high bar set by the franchise, “Alien: Resurrection,” whatever its other issues, is comfortably the grossest and goriest film in the franchise, from the anonymous soldier who gets offed with liquid nitrogen, to Dan Hedaya finding a piece of his own brain, to the repulsive ending to the Newborn creature (which is gradually sucked out the hull through a tiny hole, insides first, to vomit-inducing effect). But probably the film’s single best and most ingenious kill comes when our anti-heroes confront the film’s bland villain (J.E. Freeman) just as chestburster-incubator Purvis (Leland Orser) is about to burst. In howling revenge at his treatment, Orser whales on the man who experimented on him, then lines up his head just at the right point and time so then when he’s chestbursted, the bad guy also gets headbursted. It’s very unpleasant, very Jeunet-ian (complete with zoom down Orser’s throat to meet the newborn), and oddly funny.
13) “Aliens” – “They’re coming out of the goddamn walls!”
James Cameron’s genius in making “Aliens” was that he didn’t just go the horror sequel route and replay the original, but did it with more creatures and gore. Cameron switches genre entirely, making the film into a sort of Vietnam-influenced war actioner and not even trying to be a horror picture for the most part. That really becomes clear in the first major action sequence, as the Colonial Marines investigate LV-426, finding a horrifying cocoon (the first time that’s introduced to the franchise, after it was cut from the original, though since restored in the Director’s Cut), and being surprise-attacked by the creatures. It’s a brutal and frenetic action sequence, chaotic and terrifying, that culminates in a heroic rescue by Ripley.
12) “Alien” – The Facehugger
One of the reasons that the xenomorph has become such a beloved monster over time is the ingenuity and purity of its lifecycle, and the first person to get an up-close-and-personal look at that is poor Kane (John Hurt), who uncovers an egg and its contents about half an hour into Ridley Scott’s original film. H.R. Giger’s design is pure, horrifying efficiency: part-crab, part-spider, part-snake, its blood deadly acid as a defense mechanism, wrapping its tendons around your head and its tail around your throat (choking you if you try to remove it) while it throatfucks you, it’s the first true glimpse of what’s to come, and truly nightmarish.
11) “Alien: Resurrection” – The Clone Gallery
Ripley having killed herself at the end of “Alien3” obviously presented a problem for the franchise going forward, and it took five years for a solution to be worked out: in Joss Whedon’s script for “Alien: Resurrection” (he’s mostly denounced the film), she returns as a clone made from a blood sample from when she had an alien chestburster gestating inside her, meaning she has a little xenomorph in her (and the new Alien Queen has a little Ripley in her). But as the film’s best sequence reveals, there was a long, 200-year passage to get to the Ripley clone here, with Ripley uncovering a lap full of monstrous, half-formed clones that went wrong, including, ultimately, one that’s still alive and begs to be killed. It’s a truly gut-churning and emotional sequence, and a glimpse of what could have been if the rest of the film wasn’t so crappy.