A Great Scare

Aliens

Directed by James Cameron

At the USA Cinema 57

Even hidden underneath the seats in a movie theater, shaking with fear, you can see what makes Aliens out of this world. Not just a great horror flick, but a great movie, complete with characters and feeling. Rare for Hollywood.

Why, you may ask? Isn't it just another high-tech monster movie, with scary things that kill everybody except the hero? No.

The movie has its fighters, its leaders, its guns, its synthetic person, its space ship technology, and its hideous slimy monsters. But the film also accurately portrays human interaction and emotion, rare for a movie of this genre. And you don't need to have seen its predecessor Alien to enjoy this sequel.

Aliens is phenomenally gripping, because it appeals to the viewer's primal instincts, like fear and motherhood. Sure, the aliens are ugly, drooling and screeching as they try to plant their eggs in their victims. But the director James Cameron creates a more general atmosphere of unrelenting fear--such as a child's fear of losing her newfound mommy--that turns your basic horror-movie shock-rush into two hours of spine-chilling terror.

Sigourney Weaver gives a terrific performance as the film's lead. No Rambo-esque musclebound bozo here, mowing down aliens for the sheer brute pleasure of it. Weaver breathes life into the age-old comic book conflict between wicked scientists and valiant humanist. Ripley, her character, manages to realistically combine the gutsy woman stereotype with a caring gentle femininity. A strong and maternal heroine is an innovation.

Set on an unknown planet, Aliens takes up with Weaver, who has been asleep with her cat in a space capsule for 57 years. Fascinated by her description of the creatures, which gestate inside humans and have acid for blood, several scientists launch a quest to catch some aliens for evaluation.

Instead of the standard horror movie romance subplot, Cameron introduces an alternative human emotion--motherhood. In their search for the alien hordes, the team discovers a little girl named Newt, played by the show-stealing Carrie Tern. At first, she is frightened to death, but gradually allows Ripley to get close to her. During the course of the movie, Ripley and Newt work together to protect each other from the monsters, developing a not-too-sentimental mother-daughter relationship.

The motherhood theme forms the basis for the movie's conflict. The aliens are the disgusting progeny of a huge, grotesque mama alien, enraged by the destruction of her babies by the earthlings. To revenge herself upon Ripley, the mother alien steals Newt away from her.

IN A FIERY BATTLE, the two mothers face off in defense of their children. Mother alien rears up and snarls at Newt with her four sets of teeth as Ripley screams, "Get away from her, you bitch!" Their encounter takes the movie beyond the standard realm of good vs. evil, humanizing the conflict, and heightening its fear-inducing power.

In addition, Aliens' minor characters, although at first they seem like B-movie stereotypes, all develop individual personalities of their own, a rarity in a horror film. The group of Marines includes Vasquez, the Hispanic tough macho lesbian, who ends up sacrificing herself for the rest of the crew; Hodgson, a dumb, smartass soldier whose terrified vulnerability in the face of the aliens makes him human after all; and a mean drill sargeant with a dry wit who has one of the film's greatest lines. Cameron manages to work in just enough comic relief to keep the audience from breaking down under the strain of intense fear.

Despite all the favorable publicity, including a Time magazine cover story, you doubt a movie about space creatures can affect you emotionally. And the last time you screamed when you saw an alien on the screen you were 12 years old. But the movie is credible and terrifying. Just ask the eight people I knocked heads with under the seat.