Ridley

One of the most disturbing inspirations of Alien He was not born in a Hollywood studio, but in a doctor’s office. For years, screenwriter Dan O’Bannon suffered from Crohn’s disease and he described some episodes as the sensation of having something alive trying to break through from inside him. That experience would end up becoming in the seed of one of the most disturbing images in the history of cinema. The scene that changed terror. In 1979, Ridley Scott took a unusual decision even by horror film standards: hiding from their own actors a good part of what was going to happen during one of the key sequences from Alien. The director was convinced that performed fear could never equal real fear. The script barely indicated that “something emerges”but the exact appearance of the creature, the amount of blood, the violence of the scene and the way everything was going to unfold remained deliberately hidden for most of the cast. That commitment to surprise would end up giving rise to one of the most shocking, imitated and studied scenes in the entire history of cinema. The origin of the nightmare. The famous chestburster sequence It was not born solely from the imagination of its creators. Dan O’Bannonscreenwriter of Alien, wore years fascinated by parasites and by some of the most brutal reproductive mechanisms in the insect world. Wasps that lay eggs inside other animals, larvae that grow by feeding on a living host, and organisms capable of controlling the behavior of their victims served as inspiration for the creature. To this added an experience much more personal: the severe intestinal pain derived from Crohn’s disease that O’Bannon himself suffered from. The feeling of having something growing and fighting By coming out of his interior he ended up becoming the central idea of ​​the monster that would end up terrifying the public. The battle for the perfect alien. Once the idea was conceived, O’Bannon knew exactly who should give it visual form. During his experience in the failed project of Dune by Alejandro Jodorowsky had discovered the work of the Swiss artist HR Gigerwhose biomechanical illustrations mixed sexuality, death, bones and machinery in a way never seen before. The problem was that the producers and the studio considered those images too disturbing and they resisted hiring him for months. Everything changed when Ridley Scott joined the project, saw Giger’s designs and was completely fascinated. Their support was decisive in incorporating the artist, a decision that would end up defining the visual identity of Alien and much of subsequent science fiction. A monster inspired by nature. The creature was also not conceived as a simple aggressive alien. O’Bannon wanted his life cycle to be as disturbing as it was plausible. The facehuggerin charge of implanting the embryo in the victim’s body, was born from the combination between the screenwriter’s ideas, Giger’s designs and the work of various artists and technicians. The goal was to create an organism that would use humans as involuntary guestsreproducing in a horror key some behaviors observed in real insects. The true horror of Alien came not only from the physical violence, but from the loss of control over one’s body and the feeling of becoming a vessel for something unknown. Preparing for the big shock. Ridley Scott was aware that the alien birth sequence would decide the success or failure of the film. If the public took it as a joke, the whole threat would disappear. That’s why he spent weeks perfecting the creature’s design and carefully planning the shoot. HE built an artificial torso for John Hurt, the actor who played Kane, and a complex hydraulic system was installed under the table. The fake breast was stuffed with real organs obtained in butcher shops and slaughterhouses, in addition to seafood and organ meats that provided a texture that was impossible to reproduce with the effects of the time. To give us an idea, the smell was so intense that the cast themselves I would remember decades later the mixture of formaldehyde, blood and decaying flesh that permeated the set. Giger airbrushing an alien hieroglyph showing the violent and parasitic life cycle of the Alien The best kept secret. The actors knew that something was going to come out from Kane’s chest, but they were practically unaware everything else. While technicians worked for hours preparing the special effect, the cast remained away from the set. When they were finally called to film, they found a stage covered with plasticscameras protected by transparent tarps, buckets scattered everywhere and team members wearing raincoats. Nobody explained to them the reason. That strange atmosphere generated a growing tension that Scott deliberately sought. I wanted the cameras to capture real uncertainty, not just interpretations. Giger’s first failed attempt to create a chest-busting alien, inspired by Francis Bacon Reality surpassed acting. The filming was not as simple as it is usually remembered. The first attempts failed because the creature could not properly pass through Kane’s shirt and some blood systems were blocked. However, these errors had an unexpected effect: They further increased the anxiety of the actors, who saw how something seemed to try to make its way from inside their partner’s body without understanding exactly what was happening. When the tiny bug finally managed to emerge and jets of blood began to shoot in all directions, the reactions were authentic. Veronica Cartwright received a direct hit in the face that she did not expect and ended up emotionally overwhelmed. Sigourney Weaver confessed that at that moment she was not even thinking about the film, but about John Hurt. Yaphet Kotto was so affected that, according to several testimoniesisolated himself for hours after filming. The scene that no one forgot. There is no doubt, Scott got exactly what he was looking for. The expressions of astonishment, horror and revulsion that appear on the screen belong largely to people that they were living something unexpected before your eyes. The director summarized years later … Read more