Rating: ****
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton,
Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt
The film that started an entire sci-fi horror franchise, this is a bleak and terrifying tale about the motley crew of a cargo spaceship that picks up a nasty alien critter on a remote planet. After ripping out of one of the crewmember's chests, it scampers around the rest of the ship, picking off the other crew members and growing at an alarming rate. Finally after the rest of the crew is dead, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) destroys the ship and escapes with the ship's cat, Jones. Dark and scary stuff with alien designs by H.R. Giger, but unfortunately the monster is always hiding in the shadows and we don't ever get a good look at it. A good and scary sci-fi horror thriller with a lot of suspense and a fair amount of bloody violence and political intrigue.