As the final week of October approaches, so does my intensity of horror movies. Thus, Space Week will be the last week that I reserve one of my horror picks for comedy and lightheartedness to break up the rest of the week’s tension. And for my last light horror film, I can’t think of a better pick than Alien: Resurrection.
Remember earlier in Space Week when we did the original Alien? I sang praises of how revolutionary it was, how it brought sci-fi horror to a new level, how it set a standard for how space horror is done and that I struggle to think of a better adventure of fright through the terror of space than that movie? Well, none of that applies to Alien Resurrection. Resurrection takes place 200 years after the events of Alien 3, though you wouldn’t be able to tell because everything looks and functions exactly the same as the original film. In these 200 years, the US government has made the interesting decision to experiment with the Xenomorphs, because it is incredibly original to make the government the bad guy in sci-fi movies. As part of their experiments, they have begun to–sigh–make clones of Ellen Ripley by splicing her DNA with Xenomorph DNA. With absolutely absurd luck, this produces a seemingly perfect organism: a human who looks like Sigourney Weaver but has increased strength, speed, and reflexes because of science. Also, not-Ripley shares an almost telepathic bond with the Xenomorphs, and one would think this would come up a lot in the movie, but one would be wrong.
OK, I can slag the writing all I want, but I honestly love Alien Resurrection. It completely abandons the tone and high stakes of the first three films and really leans into its identity as a hilariously ridiculous action movie. I mean this movie has it all. National treasure Dan Hedaya kills a Xenomorph with a grenade and brave eyebrows. Sigourney Weaver dunks a basketball. Winona Ryder is angry all the time. Ron Perlman wasn’t given a script and just kept wandering onto the set after doing copious amounts of PCP every day. No one has any discernible motivation for anything they do other than “Ah, aliens, hell yeah!” Gary Dourdan’s character has Bullseye-like superpowers that are never explained or shown more than once. The number of Xenomorphs on the ship range from 1-12 and constantly fluctuate according to whatever is scarier. It’s all a bunch of chaos, and I love it!
No, Alien Resurrection is not scary. It’s weird and unsettling at times, but there really isn’t any fear factor to it. But man, is it a fun ride, and sometimes in the midst of Lovecraftian cosmic terror and existential dread that is Space Week here at Fandom Correspondents, a fun ride is just what you need!
We’ll be finishing up Space Week tonight with the original Cloverfield!
