Ridley Scott's Alien (1979)

The bug-eyed monster (BEM) is one of two antagonists that have caused agitation in science fiction (SF) moviegoers. Usually the woman-kidnapper/man-killer, the BEM has been seen as a horrible, evil doer that must be stopped and/or destroyed before it strikes again (Sobchack, 1987). The xenomorph in Ridley Scott's 1979 film, Alien, uses the BEM's absence to strengthen the visual and sound effects of the BEM's presence when the xenomorph finally appears.

In direct contrast with most SF films at the time, Alien was one of the first to have a female as the sole survivor and the last voice of the xenomorph's attack. Although the xenomorph kills the entire crew, one woman included, the xenomorph's birth seems like an attack on the human male.

The design of the xenomorph was developed by HR Giger after Ridley Scott discovered HR Giger's art book Necronomicon. All three stages of the xenomorph's lifespan, the facehugger, the chestburster, and lastly the xenomorph, are what critics and cast have considered to be uncomfortably sexual and violent while being sleek and mysterious. That Giger's work merges sex and technology into something he refers to as biomechanics, a mix of organic and machine. In Alien, the forced implantation of the xenomorph makes the contact uncomfortable for all who watches, although the birth of the xenomorph is substantially more horrid (Whittington, 2007).

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Giger's xenomorph design went hand in hand with his overall design of the planetoid and the alien spacecraft where the crew first encounters the nest of eggs; however, Ridley Scott knew sound was play a large part in the film:

“When you see the film with the proper mix of big sound, you can hear a lot of very subtle sounds all the time; they are always there working on your paranoia. I think the atmospherics are terribly important. This is not score. This is just uneasy, almost organic sounds that make you feel uncomfortable” (Scott et al, 2003).

The soft sounds provide an ambience to a sequence evoking anxiety while the contrasting loud screech of the xenomorph shocks the audience into what William Whittington calls dark lyricism (Whittington, 2007).

Xenomorph Attacks Dallas

Dark lyricism is a concentration on the ambient sounds in horror SF films. In the case of Alien, Scott uses a heartbeat to indicate when the xenomorph was about to attack. In non-SF films, these types of sounds become part of an ambient soundtrack, part of the background noise. In SF films, particularly horror SF films like Alien, the soft hum of wind or gentle jingle of chains only provoke uneasiness in the audience as they wait for something to happen. (Whittington, 2007).

The First Xenomorph Attack

The xenomorph costume was molded for seven foot tall, rail-thin Bolaji Badejo, a Nigerian graphic design student. Badejo was sent to t'ai chi and mime classes to get his movements fluid. 

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Percy Edwards, a longtime animals impressionist, lent his vocals to the xenomorph's scream. Limiting the xenomorph's screen time while keeping the vocalizations to four screams in a two hour long film, Ridley Scott kept the imagination of the audience:

“The most important thing in a film of this type is not what you see, but the effect of what you think you saw. Every movement is going to be very slow, very graceful, and the alien will alter shape so you never really know exactly what he looks like” (Scott et al, 2003).

Sobchack agrees that once a film shows too much of the of the monster, the monster and the film looses the appeal and the emotional connection to both: “[if] the totally imaginative visualizations of alien life forms in the SF film strive to dislocate us from the narrow confines of human knowledge and human experience, they best do so when they are virtually silent and primarily inactive” (pg 91-92).

SF horror films rely heavily on the lack of imagery of the BEM. The screeching and sounds of the BEM pale in comparison to the tricks the mind plays when in the depths of silence, or black noise. The silence between the screams make the screams of the xenomorph more plausible even though the audience has no frame of reference for how an alien life form might sound.

Reference

IMBd. (n.d.). Percy Edwards. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0250272/bio

Scott, R. (Director), O'Bannon, D. (Writer), Weaver, S (Actress). (2003). Alien Quadrilogy [DVD]. United States: 20th Century Fox.

Sobchack, V. (1987). Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. New York: Ungar.

Whittington, W. (2007). Sound design & science fiction. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

by Alix Rael 

http://soundsofcreaturesandmachinesinscifi.blogspot.com/