Really, it's the single best dystopian claustrophobic horror film I've seen. Not that there's a lot of those, but Alien is easily better than it's predecessors(like Thing) and certainly lightyears better than it's successors. Gripping, surprisingly disgusting and while the production certainly could have been better(not to mention filming, what the heck was with those close-up shots all the time?), it's a tight horrorfest. Much more complete then the botched up thing they call Alien 3, urghh.
What first enamoured me was the inside look of Nostromo. My god, it looks like a submarine in space! Everywhere is damp, steam leaking from pipes and cooling system dysfunctioning, and the ship seems like it's been sunken under the waves since the 60's. Barely working and a mess of pipes and odd fixtures that don't seem to serve other purpose than look depressing. Yet it's somehow beatiful, just like the inside of the alien(somebody called them "Pilots) ship. I really liked the contrast between the organic look and manmade once the xenomroph starts to take out the crew. This film certainly has great art direction. Bless you, Giger.
Another thing that held me in a firm grip was the suffocating feeling of claustrophy and, later on, loneliness. Just like Ripley at the end in the escape shuttle, the watcher gets assaulted by the feeling of frailty or better yet the aura of 'alien'. An atmosphere that just screams "you can't see it, you can't run away from it and it's so different, so superior, that you can never best it or understand it" and is further enhanced by the claustrophy of tight hatches and corridors of Nostromo. When the captain was skulking in the air shafts with the flamethrower and perspiration started slowly to show and he had to keep the flamethrower ready all the time, I couldn't help feeling more than a bit of creeped out.
I guess the experience could have been better if I didn't already know that Ripley would survive. I didn't really fear for her, which sort of ruined the end since I couldn't sympathise with her that much. And on that ruining part, when the alien chestbrusted from Kane, I just kep grinning, since the special effect was so aged. :D
Great movie. I'll have to watch Aliens next, since it has been the odd 8 years when I last saw it.