1979 Theatrical Release Alien,
Directed By Ridley Scott
Alien is a pivotal film in the horror genre, it was one of the last films made before the 80's boom of slasher horror so it feels more genuine and scary in it's attempts to captivate the audience. Sigourney Weaver plays Ellen Ripley, A warrant officer aboard the commercial ship Nostromo, She is joined by 6 other crew aboard the space ship.
Ripley starts displaying "Final Girl" (clover) elements 10 minutes into Alien. "Its not our solar system" she claims as the crew is woken from their space sleep. She realises something is wrong from the outset (as do we) and her view is close to our own. This identifies her as our final girl. Other signifiers of her being our final girl is her name throughout the film, although formally she is Ellen Ripley, she is referred to as 'Ripley' throughout which has masculine undertones. Ripley is not the only female however, Lambert the navigator is also a key female in the film, however the camera view points throughout the film focus mostly on Ripley and as an audience we are given the impression that she is the Final Girl from the get go. The space ship receives a distress signal from a nearby planet, here Ripley insists that they go back to their sleep but she is over ruled by her fellow crew to land the ship and investigate the planet, as instructed by the science ship officer (Ash).
Aboard the ship Nostromo, the majority of the crew are males and although Ripley has a reasonable position of power, she is out numbered by males. The male audience viewing this film might have been identifying with other male crew mates at the start, but their roles are fleeting and as Carol Clover discusses "they tend to die early in the film". The crew discovers Alien eggs and one attatches itself to Kane. The two other crew mates Lambert and Dallas beg Ripley to let Kane onto the ship, Ripley insists that letting him on would be a breach of quarantine, however Ash overrules Ripley and opens the vent.
Kane is the first to die, seemingly fine after the alien egg attack, they are all seated for a meal when his chest bursts open much to the disgust and horror of his crew mates. This is high quality horror as it is very unexpected in the calm scene (although foreshadowed at the start). The red blood against the ships metal and white background is a dramatic colour contrast and could be seen as a signifier of death for the seemingly innocent crew (white).
As the film progresses the crew get smaller and smaller, this is where we can see Ripley kicking into action, her thought process is very rational and calm in comparison to the others who are in more of a flame thrower frenzy. Ripley tries to take her rightful command over Ash, much to his reluctance, and goes to 'mother' a supercomputer aboard the ship that has the mission and all the data inside it. Ripley then discovers that Ash has been lying to crew, and was instructed to bring the Alien back to earth to weaponise for their employers. Furthermore that he is an Artificial Intelligence. For many audience members this is just an added thrill to the horror film, the horror that one of your own see's you as expendable to the mission as well as the threat of A.I. This threat was felt very strongly in the early 80s as more and more factories set up and robots could replace human job roles. Although not a massive fear it was still a fear of the time.
Ash upon learning Ripley knows, then moves to attacks Ripley with a newspaper, although not an outwardly phallic weapon he rolls it into a cylindrical shape and attempts to suffocate her with it with strong sexual connotations. This could be seen as an act of sexual violence of a man vs a woman in the horror film, but Ash is a robot so perhaps we could argue that is less so?
Ripley defeats Ash with assistance from her crew mates and they learn more about the Alien. At this point you could argue that Lambert could have been a final girl, her innocence throughout the film is obvious and she becomes more unstable as the film goes on, hysterically suggesting they abandon the plan to kill the Alien and flee on the pod. Despite her character flaws, Lambert makes it into the final three. There is a certain hopefulness that the three of them might make it out alive, Lambert and Parker are not seen as dumb characters by the audience and we feel some empathy for them both, Lambert because of her frantic emotions and Parker because he has lost his best friend. They are sent to collect life supplies for the shuttle but are cornered by the Alien. Parker represents the last male character to identify with, he makes an attempt to save Lambert as she is paralyzed by fear "Indulging his vanity as protector of the helpless female" (2) however the Killer in this situation (Alien) eliminates his role as protector and pursues Lambert. Lambert's death is the final we are given, slow and suspenseful and hinted strongly that the Alien rape-killed Lambert although much of her death is off screen. It's tail creeping up her leg is the most we are given but it was enough to assume. Although an alien, we can still use this as an example of sexualised violence towards a female. It is a a hotly debated subject among critics but was confirmed when the game version of Alien was created and that scene was recreated. Director Ridley Scott then confirmed "was that some dreadful ending? Was that some terrible invasion of her body, a rape?"(1). Lambert's death was changed a significant amount of times during the filming, her nervous disposition and emotional fragility lead to one of the proposed deaths being that she climbed inside a cupboard and died of fright but it was decided in the end to leave her death as ambiguous as possible to allow the audience to let their imagination run wild.
Ripley (and her beloved cat Jonesy) make it to the shuttle and the Nostromo is blown wide open. The audience feels a sense of relief, and Ripley is sexualised for the audience (for the first time) perhaps to give them the sense that it is safe. She strips down to a thin white tank and pants, covered in sweat. It's quite a powerful sexual image, that could be seen as fetishism for the male audience parts or a feminist victory for the females of the audience. Whilst all audience members are gaining something, we are suddenly guided by the camera angle to the danger that still lurks, the Alien has curled up into the shuttle. A quick minded Ripley gets into a space suit (a camera view point that certainly highlights her assets undoubtedly) and defeats the alien by releasing it into space. We watch with her as the Alien's corpse drifts away and we then know that the immediate horror is over.
(1) https://www.videogamer.com/features/lamberts-death-not-ripleys-survival-was-the-biggest-challenge-in-alien-isolations-dlc
(2) Carol Clover, Her Body, Himself.
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