I'm a writer, so what I find compelling might not be the same as what non-writers do. There's a line in the Cameron script, describing the ship, as I recall, upon which Ripley is found in suspended animation in the opening scenes. It's a shot description, so you don't hear it in the film. I don't have the script at hand, but the line as I remember it was, "It was cold and remote -- like the love of God."
That's a writer playing with language.That's terrific metaphor, and nobody who just saw the movies would know it was. Cameron likes science fiction, and it shows in his work. Aliens was a horror movie. A2 was a science fiction picture. Sure, A1 was scary, but I kept looking at the screen and thinking what a bunch of idiots! I was on that ship, I wouldn't be going to pee without everybody going with me. We'd sleep in a pile and if the cat ran by in the night, it would be toast.
A lot of horror movies work because the people aren't as smart as the monster. I seldom have sympathy for somebody who does something so stupid I start rooting for the monster to get them ...
Part of it is taste, part of it is not being caught in the tropes. The scariest monster movies are where everybody does the right thing and the monster still gets them ...