Editorials
[‘Aliens’ 30th Anniversary] The One Decision That Makes ‘Aliens’ a Perfect Sequel
Movie sequels of any genre are generally difficult to write, but that’s especially the case with horror. In the original film, a group of characters found themselves in some crazy, life-threatening situation, and by the end, one or two were somehow able to make it out alive. They are probably lead to safety by the time the credits roll, and that’s about it. There’s nothing left open, and the scenario was so preposterous that it’s unlikely the survivors would ever encounter it again. Yet by returning to theaters for a sequel, audiences are clearly hoping for more of the same, so how the hell does a filmmaker set that in motion?
Though it verges into science-fiction territory, the original Alien has quite a bit in common with horror, in particular when it comes to the third act. Ripley, our final girl, escapes the terror of the Xenomorph, defeats it, and emerges victorious. She goes into stasis as the ship apparently heads home, and that’s all, folks. We don’t leave feeling we need to have the story continued, and once Ripley makes it back to Earth, we would assume she’d retire to an island somewhere and never set foot in space again.
This presents James Cameron with a tremendous problem as he begins work on a sequel. Audiences obviously want Ripley back, as Sigourney Weaver was a significant reason the first movie was so great, and they clearly want her to kick some more Xenomorph ass. Imagine for a moment that Aliens does not exist and you’re in Cameron’s shoes in the early 1980s trying to figure out a way to extend Ridley Scott’s storyline. What do you do?
The dilemma is quite frequently seen in horror, a genre in which sequels are as common as dirt, but Cameron’s solution demonstrates exactly why he’s a master filmmaker and why Aliens is a perfect sequel, whereas other similar part-twos are relegated to the straight-to-DVD bin. In fact, his movie provides a blueprint for modern horror directors attempting to write sequels to seemingly sequel-proof movies.
Aliens opens with Ripley floating in space just where we left her before she is rescued and taken aboard a Weyland-Yutani Corporation ship. Instantly, Cameron decides to show some of the consequences of Ripley’s victory at the end of Alien, revealing that it wasn’t exactly a riding-off-into-the-sunset type deal. Aboard the ship, Ripley receives a shock when she is told that she has been in hypersleep for quite a bit longer than expected: 57 years. Not only that, but she is suffering from severe PTSD as a result of her experience with the Xenomorph, having a horrifying dream of one of the creatures bursting out of her chest. Right away we see that she may have killed the alien, but that doesn’t mean she got away scot-free.
Moments later, we pick up with Ripley sitting on a bench looking out into the forest longingly. As the camera pans, it is revealed that this lush environment was merely part of a computer screen, and immediately Ripley is torn from her dreamlike state and pulled back into the harsh reality from which she has not escaped quite yet. We can feel her eagerness to return home and let her wounds finally heal, which makes the decision to come in a few moments all the more taxing.
Burke arrives and informs Ripley that her daughter, Amanda, who was 11 years old when Ripley left Earth, died at the age of 66 while Ripley was in hypersleep. When Ripley left for her original mission, she had never considered the possibility of not being there for Amanda’s entire life, but now, she holds in her hand a photo of her daughter as an old woman, reflecting on all the time she missed as a direct result of the Xenomorph attack. “I promised her that I would be home for her birthday,” Ripley finally lets out, and in one line, Cameron hits us with the same gut punch Christopher Nolan would later utilize in Interstellar. Ripley was concerned about missing one of Amanda’s birthdays, but now, she has missed them all. (This happens in the extended edition, at least, and it’s quite baffling that this detail was left out of the original cut.)
She is soon told that LV-426, the planet on which the Nostromo first encountered their Xenomorph, is now home to a colony of humans including many kids. Ripley is clearly haunted by the fact that she was not able to be there for Amanda, who she abandoned and let slip away. But now, being the only person who fully understands the threat posed by the Xenomorphs, she has the chance to save other young girls and boys, doing for them what she couldn’t do for her own child. This, in combination with the fact that she is being continuously haunted by the Xenomorphs and feels she must finish what she started, inspires Ripley to reluctantly travel to LV-426.
It obviously is not an easy choice for her to make. When Burke first brings up the idea, she is understandably dismissive, just as audiences may have been dismissive of the idea of producing a sequel to Alien and forcing Ripley to go through even more terror. But in these masterful opening minutes, Cameron gets across the profound loss Ripley has suffered, the pain she continues to experience, and the fact that she now has little left tying her to Earth anyway. He has convinced us that this movie was worth making, something few horror sequels actually bother doing.
Cameron could have easily come up with some phony scenario in which Ripley would have no choice but to fight more Xenomorphs; perhaps her ship crashes onto LV-426 and she must fight her way to freedom. But by rooting the thrust of Aliens in Ripley’s character and giving her a choice of whether to run or to fight, everything that happens in the ensuing hours means so much more, and we truly care about her making it out alive again. If the scenario was not believable, and if Ripley had no new conflict to overcome, we would tune out. Here, the drama is rooted in the main character’s desires, giving her both a physical problem – fighting the Xenomorphs – and a non-physical problem – learning to accept the loss of her daughter.
Later in the movie, Ripley forms a connection with a little girl named Newt, who clearly reminds her of Amanda. In Newt, Ripley sees an opportunity to connect with and save someone in the way she previously failed to do, and so Ripley’s journey in the movie is completely distinct from her journey in the original Alien. She is not merely helping a bunch of random civilians out of the goodness of her heart; she’s also coping with her grief and learning to love again, both to love Newt and to love herself, which makes Aliens a fresh emotional arc for Ripley. Compare this to the vast majority of horror sequels, where the character’s storyline is merely repeated a second time and little new ground is covered.
Take the scene where Ripley and Newt share a conversation and Ripley opens up about the fact that she used to have a daughter. She says to Newt, “I’m not gonna leave you Newt. I mean that. That’s a promise.” We can imagine how hard these words are for Ripley to get out, given her anger at herself for leaving Amanda and not fulfilling her promise to be back for her birthday. From here on out, after Ripley makes her promise to Newt, even more important than Ripley’s own survival is her ability to ensure Newt’s safety.
And that’s why Cameron so brilliantly makes the final setpiece not about the safety of Ripley – which would be a retread of Alien – but about the safety of Newt. When Newt has been snatched away by the Xenomorph, the rest of the crew believes that trying to rescue her is a lost cause, but Ripley can’t live with herself if she abandons another young girl. She has to do this. “She’s alive,” Ripley says. “There’s still time.” Being out of time is exactly what ripped Amanda away from her, but she won’t let that happen again.
Compare all of this complexity to other sequels involving a character who previously escaped a deadly environment returning for more. In Jurassic Park III, which is essentially a slasher film with dinosaurs, the screenwriters must figure out a way that Alan Grant would go back to Isla Nublar, even though it was pretty clear by the end of Jurassic Park that there is no way in hell he would ever do so. If Joe Johnston were to take a similar approach as James Cameron did with Aliens, he would give Alan Grant some sort of unfinished business and a desire that is tied up with the adventure so that traveling back to Jurassic Park is necessary in completing his character’s journey.
Is that what happens? Nope. The way that Johnston sets the pieces back in play is hilariously lazy. Alan Grant is approached about returning to Isla Nublar, and he says no. But then he’s offered a lot of money, so he says yes. That’s basically it. He is assured the plane he’s on will only fly above the island, but then in an unexpected turn of events that Grant should have totally expected, he wakes up on Isla Sorna like the dudes in The Hangover II, going through the exact same adventure again for some stupid reason.
It’s so clear how unneeded the whole story is. Alan Grant’s arc was complete in Jurassic Park, and this follow-up does nothing to convince us he has more work to do. Johnston simply throws Grant back on the island, and when Grant flies away in a helicopter for the second time at the conclusion of the movie, we don’t feel as if he’s a substantially different person than when we left him in Jurassic Park. All of this happened because Universal wanted to make some money off a sequel.
The same is true of The Descent Part II. Sarah has escaped the cave, but Jon Harris needs to get her back in for this sequel, and so the characters essentially drag her back in kicking in screaming. The journey does not involve her making any sort of decision, and there’s no unfinished business or justification for why we’re doing all of this again. It’s the problem so many horror films run into unless they focus on an entirely new set of characters. It’s not merely about finding a way to literally continue the plot; it’s about getting around the fact that the character’s arc was already resolved, and so now they must be given another one that is totally distinct. James Cameron does this with Aliens, but with horror sequels, barely anyone else bothers.
Much attention is paid to the fact that Aliens shifts genres a bit, going in the direction of action-adventure while the first film was focused on horror. That’s true, but it’s not the real brilliance of the picture. The reason it’s so great is that James Cameron takes a movie that clearly did not need a sequel and, by the end, makes us feel that a sequel was in fact incredibly necessary.
As the film closes, Ripley flies away from LV-426 with a much greater sense of accomplishment. While last time around she simply escaped an alien attack but felt a lingering sense of unfinished business, this time, she went back in on her own volition, stood up to these creatures that have been plaguing her nightmares, and declared that she is not afraid. She holds Newt in her arms, learning to trust herself with another life again, and Newt tells Ripley, “I knew you’d come back.” After the tremendous guilt of having gone off to space and having left her child, Newt has filled a void in Ripley’s life that she thought would forever remain vacant.
In short, Aliens works because Cameron understands that audiences will roll their eyes if a sequel is based on some phony plot where the lead character is to thrust back into the identical situation for no discernible reason. The film must give its protagonist the decision of whether to run back into danger, and it should present them with a brand new problem that has arisen as a direct result of the previous movie’s climax. Aliens solves the classic dilemma of figuring out how to return a main character to deadly circumstances while keeping the audience on board, and for that reason, it may be the perfect horror sequel.
Tales from the Crypt has been influential in keeping EC Comics alive in the public conscience, even after going off the air thirty years ago. That classic horror show pulled from multiple stables within the iconic comic publisher, but it also didn’t adapt everything. Even the ones the producers did pick weren’t always faithfully retold on screen.
So while it might seem like Tales from the Crypt covered plenty of EC Comics’ works, a lot still remains unadapted.
These ten great stories would have made fine additions to the series.
“Bats in My Belfry!” (Tales from the Crypt)
When an actor named Harry began to lose his hearing, a friend put him in contact with a special “doctor”. After receiving the gift of super-hearing—a taxidermist implanted a bat’s auditory system inside of Harry—the protagonist learned about his wife’s affair. On top of that, she and her paramour were planning to kill Harry. Of course, they didn’t realize Harry had transformed into a humanoid vampire bat.
Something Tales from the Crypt didn’t do enough of, on account of whatever reason (budget and time restraints seem most likely), was stories about monsters. But Crypt once had the best contacts in the business, so you can bet that were-bat would have been in good hands.
“The Beast of the Full Moon!” (The Vault of Horror)
Tom and his girlfriend, June, were fearful of the werewolf who’d been on a recent murder spree in their area. Tom already suspected his brother Andrew, who may have been infected after a trip to Corocoa. And when Tom had an encounter with the werewolf, he stabbed the creature’s right paw before it could flee. Later, Tom’s suspicions were all but confirmed when he saw Andrew’s bandaged right hand.
So, Tom laid a trap for the monster—a pit—, and he waited nearby with a gun full of silver bullets. One thing led to another, and Tom ended up in the pit with the werewolf. Luckily, someone above shot and killed the beast. That’s when Tom saw Andrew above ground and June in the pit, the latter dead from her gunshot wound.
While Tales from the Crypt did have lycan episodes, like “Werewolf Concerto” and “The Secret”, there was still room for one more. With the comic having such a small cast, though, it may have been too easy to figure out the culprit. But surely someone on staff could have punched up the original story for television.
“Pipe Down!” (The Haunt of Fear)
Lila hated her older husband, Andrew. After beginning an affair with a handyman named Howard, Lila plotted Andrew’s death. She and Howard got away with Andrew’s murder, but now they couldn’t marry for a year; otherwise, it would look suspicious. In the meantime, Lila purchased a pet monkey that was born on the same day that Andrew died.
When Howard found what looked like evidence of Lila having another lover—he spotted a lit cigar and two half-empty glasses—Howard flew into a rage and murdered his girlfriend. That’s when the cops arrived, saying a phone operator reported the disturbance. However, all she heard on the other end of the phone was an animal’s shriek. Once Howard was arrested, Lila’s monkey went back into the house, picked up a book, and smoked a pipe. Just like Andrew used to do.
This story would have fit in with the wackier episodes of Tales from the Crypt. There are quite a few of those—especially later on as the series moved away from the more macabre material. “Pipe Down!” also spices up the typical adultery-and-murder plots that were so common in EC’s output.
“Swamped” (The Haunt of Fear)
Deep in the Okefenokee Swamp, a cannibalistic hermit fed on those who traveled near his shack built over the water. He fed on visiting hunters and then disposed of their remains beneath his home. Anyone who revolted or came after him only ended up in the quicksand. Finally, though, the hermit suffered the same fate as his victims; he, too, slipped into the muddy graveyard below his crumbling shack. Yet now waiting for him were the hungry souls desperate to get back at their killer.
It’s unclear who the writer was behind “Swamped”, but their work here is intense. The insight and colorful descriptions are unexpected for that mere tale of the cannibal who got his just desserts. That kind of writing, along with Reed Crandall‘s artwork, makes this one of the most engaging stories from EC’s horror run.
“The October Game” (Shock SuspenStories)
Mitch, a deeply resentful and growingly mad father and husband, hosted his young daughter’s Halloween party. Kids and other parents soon all piled into the basement. The night of fun then ended with one last parlor game: Mitch passed around the body parts of a witch (an arm, her heart, and so on). One of the young guests assumed these were really things like chicken innards.
Mitch’s wife, Louise, looked for her daughter among the crowd, wondering if Marion was scared. That’s when Louise realized the girl wasn’t there—or alive. She begged everyone not to turn on the lights in the basement, out of fear of them seeing what Mitch had done to her poor daughter. Unfortunately for Louise, her plea was in vain.
Tales from the Crypt usually refrained from child-endangered stories, and it much rather focused on adult characters. But the show also lacked Halloween entries, apart from Season Six’s “Only Skin Deep“. Perhaps the need for Halloween, as a validation of any eerie goings-on, was unnecessary.
This Ray Bradbury adaptation (originally a short found in Weird Tales) is well deserving of a read. It’s a glowing example of suspense storytelling. The comic also never shows a lick of violence, yet it feels incredibly violent.
“Strictly from Hunger” (The Vault of Horror)
A posse of men stood before a cave, awaiting something horrible inside. One of the men, Doc, explained the uncanny and dangerous creature; he’d seen it before. Doc told everyone about how his patient, Pete, was diagnosed with a malignant, cancerous lump on his arm. There was nothing Doc could do to help him. Pete then sought assistance from an old witch in the mountain. Using magic, she made sure Pete would never die, although his cancer remained intact and unhealed.
Over time, the cancer cells in Pete’s body consumed all his healthy cells. To keep living, Pete turned into a giant blob that ate others’ healthy cells. Back in the present story, the posse fought the emerging creature until it retreated into the cave. The characters all finally blocked the entrance to prevent Pete from ever escaping again.
Obviously, Tales from the Crypt didn’t have the budget to support a story like this one, but imagine if it did. A body horror episode of this degree could have been fantastic, not to mention outright disgusting.
“Marriage Vow” (The Haunt of Fear)
Martin and Eva’s marriage was no longer a happy one. Eva, who’d become controlling and slovenly a few years after their wedding, refused to let Martin out of her sight. “Till death do us part,” she would always say. Eventually, Martin killed Eva; he loosened the wrought iron bars on the balcony where Eva liked to spend time, and she fell to her death. However, Eva didn’t stay dead, as she came back as a zombie intent on honoring the “till death” part of their vows.
EC did more than its fair share of stories like “Marriage Vow”, as did Tales from the Crypt. Spousal murder was pretty common. This comic, though, delivers a strong implication as the zombified wife tells her husband to “come to bed”. That line makes a reader’s imagination run wild.
“Dog Food” (Crime SuspenStories)
A prisoner named Tom swore revenge on the warden, Lester, after a fellow prisoner was tortured and killed under his command. However, to get past Lester’s voracious guard dogs, so that he could enter his house and kill him, Tom started saving meat from his meals. The other prisoners also contributed to his collection.
Tom set off on his journey to Lester’s dog-guarded house, but he ran out of meat before reaching his destination. So, Tom did the next best thing and fed parts of his own body to the dogs.
Once again, Reed Crandall elevated a gruesome, vengeful story with his realistic style. It’s so lurid. At any rate, it was just too graphic for Tales from the Crypt to adapt—and that’s really saying something here.
“Master Race” (Impact)
Carl Reissman was on a subway, remembering his “bloody war years” in Germany. Even after a decade had passed, he remained paranoid. And as he spotted a certain other passenger coming his way, a man in all black, Carl became afraid and started running. His mind flashed back to the events of the Holocaust during this “chase”.
Finally, before Carl fell on the tracks and in the path of an oncoming train, he revealed he wasn’t a prisoner in a concentration camp; he commanded one. The stranger in black said to those onlookers, asking what happened; he didn’t even know the victim. This Carl had simply run from him on the platform.
While Tales from the Crypt did occasionally go beyond what was available in their more horror-centric source material—the war-themed Two-Fisted Tales, for instance—it didn’t ever go near Impact. This short-lived series is considered toned down for EC. Even still, that didn’t make “Master Race” any less shocking. It’s a potent entry that wouldn’t have fit in with the Tales from the Crypt show we now know, but nonetheless, it’s a thought-provoking piece of storytelling.
“Forty Whacks!” (Crime SuspenStories)
A twenty-two-year-old woman named Fanny was frustrated by her parents; they flipped out when she put on makeup. However, when the daughter discovered a mysterious hatchet in her attic, she became possessed by a strange power and did the unthinkable. One after the other, Fanny used that hatchet to kill her parents.
The detective assigned to Fanny’s case was interrupted by his wife and son. The former had an out-there theory: the hatchet belonged to the infamous Lizzie Borden, and it was now capable of causing children to kill their own parents. The detective didn’t buy his wife’s idea, but that was until his entranced son picked up the murder weapon and took a swing at his pop.
Here, EC dipped into historical crime for a ghoulish story that sounds like something out of Friday the 13th: The Series. Maybe it’s a bit in bad taste, but that has never stopped Tales from the Crypt—which is why we love it.
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