Alien

Between bonus gripes, a crew of grumpy space truckers stumble across what appears to be a distress signal. Following a traumatic landing, a small team of heavily dressed snoopers wander out to find the source, inadvertently bringing back an aggressive, mutating infection. The title character of Alien is a curious creation, worlds away from the huffing, invincible clods that typically clog up sci-fi anxiety yarns. Designed by surrealist painter HR Giger, and played by seven foot plus Bolaji Badejo, the alien is a bio-mechanical agitator blessed with snaking limbs and a camouflage naturally attuned to filthy, industrial spaces. At one point the science officer of this besieged ship categorises the beast as the son of the astronaut it births from. This throwaway line frames the monster in the most interesting way: the creature is not wholly alien, it is instead a hybrid that has calibrated itself to human dimensions.

As if to underline the point, the creature even seems to operate with the basic, procreational instincts of a prehistoric hunter gatherer. It's territorial, instantly brutalising all the male crew members it encounters while, conversely, displaying an obvious fascination with the females. The Alien pores over the women, savouring its proximity to them. Lambert's death in particular seems to be about a grim kind of enchantment. The androgynous alien looms over the shrinking Navigator, excitedly hooking its stinger tail between her legs. Desperate, but apparently unable to rape her, the alien instead skewers its intended off-screen. This strange savagery attracts a sense of fraternity in Ian Holm's pre-programmed snitch. Ash is another bio-mechanoid, this time designed by humans and acting in secret on behalf of amoral, corporate calculations. When Sigourney Weaver's interim leader Ripley gets wind of the crew's company mandated expendability, Ash attacks her with a rolled-up porno magazine, attempting to force it down her throat. Like the Alien, Ash is another neutered half-man scrambling for a penis substitute. This is the horror in Ridley Scott's film. Death and consumption seem like secondary concerns when you're being considered by a violent, extraterrestrial sexuality.