Scary Movies

Cat blog friend http://www.15andmeowing.com asked about scary movies and I realized I had more to say about one than would fit as a comment. 

When 'Alien' came out in 1979, a friend and I went to see it opening night.  We stood in line for hours in the rain, and missed the first showing by only 3 people.  We thought is was about bad things from an alien's POV.  Boy were WE wrong.  When the first viewers cane out, they were pale and shaken!  I turned to my friend and asked what we had gotten ourselves into?

Neither of us were particularly frightened by monster movies.  I'm realistic, and my friend was a cinema buff, so we weren't either really TOO worried.  Space aliens were generally silly, and Earthly ones too unlikely. 

But as the movie started darkly, and a sense of unease came over us, and we thought about the looks on the faces of the first audience as they came out, we began to worry.  When we first saw the queen alien skeleton in the derelict ship, we both said "Oh crap"! 

And even then, we weren't prepared for the first egg.  How harmful can a newly-hatched creature be?  We found out!  And it all got worse from there.  By the time Ripley was searching for her cat Jonesie, I was watching most of the screen with partially-shielded eyes.  The SUSPENSE was what was killing me!

Right up to the end, I wasn't sure who was going to win.  The movie had been unique enough that it might well have been the alien left, sending the ship to Earth...

It is the only movie I have ever left with popcorn uneaten!  As we left the theater, I turned to the nearest people in line and said "You aren't prepared for this one".

I still have a T-Shirt I had made afterwards that says "Alien" on the front and "Here, Jonesie" on the back.  But I have never watched that movie on TV.

The following Alien movies were easier to watch, but not by much.  Enough (since I knew Ripley would win) to watch though.  My favorite parts of the later movies were when Ripley confronted the Alien Queen using the personal equipment-mover outfit in Alien2, and when she let herself fall into the molten iron pit in Alien3.  I cried as she fell holding the newly-irrupting Queen hatchling to her to prevent it escaping.

Tgere was Alien; Resurrection, but if I saw it, I can't recall anything about it.

But I was surprised some years ago by the movie 'Prometheus'.  I watched for a few minutes and realized it felt a bit like 'Alien', so I kept watching.  I had no idea it was a prequel.  As prequels to movie series go, it was much better than most.   It involved a superior humanoid species (likely  space-faring ancestors to ourselves in some way, 8' tall, built like giant wrestlers, and technologically-advanced) developing dangerous interstellar creatures as weapons.  I didn't watch the whole movie (in and out of the room cleaning) but apparently the human heroine is fighting and losing to the humanoid when a cage is damaged and a dangerous captive octopus-like creature gets loose. 

Apparently, it was like a dozen strong humans could capture a panther, but one would have a very hard time of it.  And even then, it was a close struggle but the humanoid loses.  And the octopus-like creature absorbs him - and his DNA.  Making the Alien of the original movies...

The heroine escapes the planet in a makeshift spaceship and instead of returning to Earth goes after humonoid race seeking revenge.  That last part is a bit weak, but I guess they couldn't have the Earth being warned about the dangerous aliens.

I understand that there is a Prometheus 2 movie in the works which may explain how the Prometheus heroine fights the sperior humanoid race

But I still can't watch "Alien'...