Midnight With An Alien At The Music Box

By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 27, 2012 4:20PM

Q: How do you know when a film is old enough to be considered a classic? A: When it's been referenced, borrowed from and/or ripped off for over thirty years without any signs of a letup. In other words, Alien is a classic. And it's the Music Box's midnight movie tonight and Saturday, a perfect choice for the dead of winter.

There are are those who prefer James Cameron's high-octane sequel, but we prefer the original. With a creeping patience calculated to generate maximum anxiety, Alien engulfs the viewer in an atmosphere so visceral it generates an intense, palpable dread. Like every great horror movie, it's scary even when nothing's happening. It was released two years after David Lynch's Eraserhead, which uses darkness and ominous sound design to similar effect. It'd be a stretch to conclude that there's any sort of direct lineage; yet, something was clearly in the air. And aliens aside, what other movie has ever brought together a cast that includes Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartwright and Harry Dean Stanton?

If you've never seen it in a theater, you've been missing out. The shadowy gloom of the cargo ship Nostromo just doesn't reproduce as well on a TV as it does on the big screen. The version screening at the Music Box is the so-called Director's Cut; though as this imdb page indicates, there are approximately a thousand different versions floating around out there. Scott's forthcoming movie Prometheus, which may or may not be an indirect prequel to Alien, hits theaters this summer.

The Music Box Theatre is at 3733 N. Southport Ave.