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Ridley Scott’s Alien has been hailed as a masterpiece since it first hit theaters in 1979. While the premise suggested a B-movie transplanting a run-of-the-mill haunted house thriller onto a spaceship, Scott and his cast and crew elevated it to a timeless cinematic masterwork with Hitchcockian suspense, well-rounded characters, and a startling sense of realism.

There are many things that make Alien a worthy inclusion on lists of the greatest movies of all time. Sigourney Weaver’s groundbreaking performance as Ellen Ripley kicked open a bunch of doors for female action heroes. H.R. Giger’s otherworldly designs rank among the most haunting portrayals of extraterrestrial life and extraplanetary environments ever put on-screen. And the xenomorph itself, Giger’s most iconic creation, is one of the most unforgettable movie monsters in film history. The way Scott frames his bloodthirsty E.T. is as memorable as James Whale’s framing of Frankenstein’s monster or Steven Spielberg’s framing of the 25-foot great white terrorizing Amity Island.

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But, ultimately, what makes Alien a masterpiece of horror cinema is its perfect pacing. Scott doesn’t rush into the alien’s debut. Instead, he takes his time introducing the crew of the Nostromo and their mission. The audience has plenty of time to get to know Ripley, Dallas, Brett, and the others and become emotionally invested in them before they suddenly start getting picked off one by one by the xenomorph.

Harry Dean Stanton in Alien

In most science fiction stories focused on a space crew, the crew are highly trained astronauts doing scientific research or forging an intergalactic warpath, which isn’t very relatable. By contrast, the crew of the Nostromo in Alien are presented as the futuristic Earth’s version of truckers, moving cargo from point A to point B. What makes Ripley such a great protagonist is that she’s not a badass from the beginning; she’s an everywoman who’s forced to become a badass when she’s faced with a seemingly unstoppable killing machine.

All the best horror movies save their first big scare for the midpoint. Audition presents itself as a melodrama about a widower looking for new love before becoming a terrifying horror movie at the midpoint. In Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock saves Marion Crane’s shower kill until the midpoint. In Halloween, John Carpenter saves the first babysitter murder until the midpoint. And in Alien, Ridley Scott saves the iconic chestburster scene until the midpoint.

A huge part of why this scene has become so iconic is its place in the overall structure of the story. Throughout the first half of the movie, the audience gets to know John Hurt’s Kane and becomes endeared to him. Then, when he’s initially attacked by the facehugger, the audience is relieved that he’s escaped certain death. The rest of the crew are happy that Kane’s okay, too, and they throw a party on the ship to celebrate. And then, in the middle of the party, a little baby alien forces its way out of Kane’s chest. The build-up is just as crucial to making a big, blood-soaked horror moment work as the moment itself.

Once the chestburster has turned the Nostromo into a blood-soaked intergalactic battleground, Scott dials up the terror. After the baby scurries off, the crew searches the ship for a slimy extraterrestrial infant. And then Harry Dean Stanton’s Brett has the misfortune of discovering that the xenomorphs grow to adult size pretty quickly when a six-and-a-half-foot alien towers over him mere hours after it was born. A lot of lackluster horror movies rush into their exciting premise right from the outset, but then fail to do that premise justice. Scott does the opposite, taking his time to introduce the exciting premise and then rewarding the audience’s patience with a nonstop thrill-ride from the midpoint to the end credits.

Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley in Alien

The most overused trope in modern horror is the jump scare. This is the cheapest, easiest way for a horror filmmaker to scare their audience, and the impact is usually fleeting. There are a couple of jump scares in Alien, but Scott uses them sparingly, and never as a crutch; he uses jump scares to pay off tension. When Dallas shines his torch down a dark tunnel and sees the xenomorph right in front of him, ready to pounce, it pays off the tension of the rest of the crew watching one blip sneak up on another blip on a computer screen.

More than 40 years later, Alien holds up as a breathtaking masterwork of horror cinema that still has the ability to terrify desensitized modern audiences. Almost everything about this movie is a major contributing factor toward its legacy in the annals of horror history, from Dan O’Bannon’s razor-sharp script to Jerry Goldsmith’s foreboding score, but above all, its success as a horror film can be attributed to its pitch-perfect pacing.

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