FILM : The Best ‘Alien’ Walks Alone

“Alien,” Ridley Scott’s movie about a nasty E.T. with a slobbering Roto-Rooter mouth and a gift for stalking people, was a publicist’s wish fulfilled after its loudly hyped release in 1979. It became one of those flicks that people got excited over, praised and made fun of (even “Saturday Night Live” parodied the famous “a monster is bursting out of my chest!” scene), all leading to big box office.

That guaranteed a sequel, the not terrible but still hectic and disappointing “Aliens” in 1986. More hefty ticket sales, justifying another offering--the latest incarnation of “Alien,” due out in the near future, is already being touted in a trailer showing up at theaters.

In the original, which opens UC Irvine’s spring film series Friday night, Scott capitalized on a horror movie cliche and didn’t so much expand it as take full advantage of it. The premise of an instinctually evil extraterrestrial preying on a group of hapless humans is at least as old as the Eisenhower era. The ‘50s spawned sci-fi chic, and Scott was inspired by many of the decade’s movies, especially “It! The Terror from Beyond Space,” released in 1958.

What Scott did with this violent but effective film was devise an inspired beast by taking advantage of new technology, the imagination of special effects whiz Carlo Rambaldi and a basic understanding of what terrifies. This alien does what any creeping thing is suppose to: repel and fascinate at the same time.

With its huge praying mantis frame and deadly power tool of a mouth, the alien unearths thoughts of mutant insects and machines gone berserk. It’s spooky, but also ticklishly amusing for anyone who has shrunk from looking too closely at that cockroach in the corner or instinctively backed off when the garbage disposal started grating.

It’s also one tough number. Shortly after the crew of the salvage ship Nostromo (a not-so-subtle reference to Joseph Conrad’s novel of the same name, another of the movie’s inspirations) brings the alien on board, and it starts mutating after exploding from John Hurt’s rib cage, we find just how formidable it is. The crew, a plucky but rightfully skittish group led by Tom Skerritt and Sigourney Weaver, topples like dominoes.

The problem with the sequel “Aliens,” besides unrelenting action that didn’t provide breaks to appreciate the verve of momentum, was the revisionistic take on the monster. In “Alien,” it was a demon seed that had sprouted into hostile perfection and seemed impossible to fight. But in the sequel, there were dozens of them, really just members on an ugly gang, diminished by their numbers. The plucky astronauts bumped them off like so much space trash.

You never really feel that the crew has much of a chance in the original, which creates a fatalistic tension and sets the stage for Weaver to emerge as sort of a superwoman. It’s not difficult to figure out why Weaver’s character has become a hardy symbol for some feminists--she out-machos the men, both in courage and resourcefulness. Weaver, an actress who brings an icy unapproachability to just about all her roles, is well cast.

“Alien,” in part because of the media campaign that preceded its release, has been knocked as an example of pure calculation in this time of Hollywood cynicism. It is slick, both in style and form, but that doesn’t diminish the film’s deftness. This is orchestrated horror, presented with agility.

And besides, it’s got a really cool monster.

What: Ridley Scott’s “Alien.”

When: Friday, Jan. 10, at 7 and 9 p.m.

Where: UC Irvine’s Student Center Crystal Cove Auditorium.

Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (405) Freeway to Jamboree Road and head south. Go east on Campus Drive and take Bridge Road into the campus.

Wherewithal: $2 and $4.

Where to Call: (714) 856-6379.