'The Classic Alien Won't Appear In Ridley Scott's Prequels At All' -Io9.com

[MadassAlex]

Again - Gore got to some people, but I never heard people saying 'ohshit face-rape'.

The studio would be the first to say 'Hold on, maybe no.'

Studio never had a problem.

The face-rape was never mentioned as an issue to anyone. No-one ever said it was anything other than a cool idea. Some audience members got put off by the chest bursting and Ash's head being removed, not seeing John Hurt lying on a table with a rubber prop wrapped around his head raping him. It was solely the graphic nature of two sequences that effected most audience members to the point they walked out.

I think it has something to do with the nature of the violence, though. I don't think audiences would've cared as much if an Alien did a tail-impale through someone's chest at some point. But there's a lot to do with the realisation that Kane had been fostering this gestating thing inside him. And that was the entire point of the lifecycle -- to underline the horror and spectacle.

[SiL]

I'm guessing it was the suddenness -- like I said, a lot of the strong reactions also came from Ash's head being knocked off, and until it was toned down, Parker's death was considered a real nut-kicker. Realising 'oh goodness it was in him all along' played a part, sure, but it was much more the execution than the concept.

[MadassAlex]

Well yeah, if the chestburster had politely asked to be surgically removed the impact would've been somewhat diminished.

Without the concept the violence is rendered irrelevant, though. That's what makes the horror in Alien so different to that of splatter or traditional slasher movies; the violence was invariably so plot-supported and character-relevant that it actually meant something to the audience.

I guess my point is that crossing the line isn't just about the literal amount of gore and violence on screen -- it's also about the relevance those events have to the characters and therefore the audience. If something the audience has some amount of investment in is violated, that's edging towards the line (or straddling it. Or crossing it. Context sensitive).

[OmegaZilla]

It's 'sci-fi'.

I know.
Sy-Fy is exclusively for the channel, as I said.

[Cellien]

You can be talented and an idiot.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sK30E2ONoTk/SaIaY9y9pJI/AAAAAAAAEto/v4Qpve40xjw/s400/tom-cruise_1.jpg

http://www.realbollywood.com/news/up_images/11118645.jpg

I lol'd.

[Mus]

As for the whole "doing something more with it" thing, if that's even necessary, they could extend the battle between the hugger and the victim. I like the alternative facehuggers Giger drew. This one:



It has that tube going into the victim's mouth, I'd like to see that on the "real" one's as well. Like, the hugger leaps on the victim's face as usual, and ss it settles down, it inserts a tube in the victim's mouth (it comes from the vagina thing when we don't see it). The victim still attempts to rip the hugger off, revealing the tube, and then we get a shot of intergalactic face penetration as the hugger pumps back and forth while trying to overpower the victim. Mmmmmm.

[SiL]

That's what makes the horror in Alien so different to that of splatter or traditional slasher movies; the violence was invariably so plot-supported and character-relevant that it actually meant something to the audience.

It was 1979. The slasher genre didn't kick into gear until the year after; Halloween was only released while Alien was in production.

On that ground there were horror films before that which had some pretty heinous shit that was every bit as plot driven. Jigoku, for example - Outdated effects out the wazoo, sure, but the entire third act takes place in hell and it's just as plot-and-character relevant as the burster.

More so, maybe.

If something the audience has some amount of investment in is violated, that's edging towards the line (or straddling it. Or crossing it. Context sensitive).

But it was done before Alien and it was done after Alien and it was done better than in Alien.

Alien did some neat stuff, but there was no freakin' line crossing.

[SpaceMarines]

I'd say it crossed a line for me when I first saw it. Of course, I was around 7 or so.

[J-Syxx]

It was 1979. The slasher genre didn't kick into gear until the year after; Halloween was only released while Alien was in production.

There's plenty of slasher-esque films that were in the US before Halloween.  Let's take the Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1978) that were international hits and much more violent and gory than Alien was even with the chestbuster scene.  I guess Alien was a much bigger financial success in the US and much more mainstream pop-culture, so the gore in the chestbuster scene seemed more revolutionary at the time with the gore than it probably really was.  I also think it's the surprise element of it.  Remember when audiences first viewed this thing, they probably weren't expecting a creature to explode out of Kane's chest and spray gore everywhere.

[SiL]

True, Italian giallo films predate modern slasher movies, but while they share the body counts and creative deaths, they don't follow most of the slasher genre tropes.

Profondo Rosso, for example, is much more a bloody crime/thriller/mystery.

[TJ Doc]

Quite positive he only said he was thinking of re-designing the early stages. Whatever that meant.

I just realised, that could mean... 

Spoiler

[close]

[SpaceMarines]

[TJ Doc]

I'm glad you're getting use out of that. 

[SpaceMarines]

Oh, I don't leave home without it!

[J-Syxx]

True, Italian giallo films predate modern slasher movies, but while they share the body counts and creative deaths, they don't follow most of the slasher genre tropes.

Profondo Rosso, for example, is much more a bloody crime/thriller/mystery.

John Carpenter took a hell of a lot of influence from Deep Red.  Even parts of the sound track are similar.  He even recycled a kill scene from Deep Red in his script for Halloween II.  It's definitely accepted that Amercian slasher genre is the bastard stepchild of the giallo genre defined by people like Mario Bava and Dario Argento.  The slasher genre also only dropped the "crime" aspect of the film after Halloween.  In Halloween, it's resprestned by Dr. Loomis and Sherrif Bracket.  The main thing Carpenter didn't do was hide and then reveal the identity of the killer at the end of the film.  He instead used a mask to keep the the audience on edge.  Doesn't change the fact that sylistically and violence wise these films definitely had precursors that were pre-Alien.

And I don't think the influence was only on strict slasher movies either.  Don Coscarelli for example said the biggest influenced on Phantasm was Suspiria.  So those films to me were definitley part of the western consciousness at that point even if they didn't break the boxoffice like the Exorcist or Alien or whatever other 70's horror film.