Editorials
Alien Day: Why ‘Aliens’ Is Still the Perfect Horror-Action Hybrid
April 26th means Alien Day. And on this day I would like to challenge the “common wisdom” of James Cameron’s Aliens that has always been a bee in my bonnet. Or should I say an Alien in my ascot? A Facehugger in my frock?
I’m not going to sit here and pretend that what is largely considered to be one of the best sequels of all time is somehow getting an unfair shake. Cameron’s 1986 follow-up to Ridley Scott’s immortal classic is well beyond gilded in the eyes of film fans at this point. Yet there is a persistent…attitude, shall we say, around Aliens that never sat right with me – and that is the notion the film is just “the action one” to Scott’s claustrophobic horror.
Because of the movie’s action fest reputation it seems many forget Cameron’s sequel is still a 100% dyed-in-the-wool horror film. We’ve all been proudly proclaiming Cameron’s breakout classic The Terminator “is a horror film, actually” to anybody who will listen. So why don’t we do the same for Aliens?
Aliens is more often than not categorized as the bigger, louder, firepower enhanced shoot ‘em up extravaganza next its smaller, more intimate predecessor. While on the surface much of this is true, that’s just it. This is all on the surface. Aliens certainly is bigger is scope and scale than Alien. It certainly contains propulsive action. Sigourney Weaver’s hair is quintessentially 80s. The film even has a couple of choice 80s style one-liners sprinkled on top. But a bombastic fireworks of 80s action machismo it is not.
The film is direct comment on machismo artifice. There may be big guns firing copious rounds into Xenomorphs. There may be explosions. There may be one-liners…but it’s never in service of propping up the marines as Rambo-esque badasses. Aliens is telling us that Rambo ain’t shit if you toss him into this world. He’s a paper tiger.
While the storytelling and filmmaking sensibilities of Scott and Cameron are vastly different, you can tell from the opening moments of Aliens that Cameron is trying to adhere to what Scott established while also doing his own thing.
Aliens is quite the slow burn when you get down to it. Depending on which version of the film you’re watching (Theatrical or Extended) it’s 30 minutes or more of runtime before the characters land on planet LV-426. It’s also an hour or more before the first major set piece in the Alien Hive takes place. So in all that time, what is Cameron doing?
He’s establishing character. He’s making world-building look easy. He’s also teasing out tension, suspense, and dread like the filmmaking equivalent of a master surgeon. As we are reintroduced to Weaver’s Ripley and being endeared to the merry band of roughneck Colonial Marines, Cameron is making us wait for the shoe to drop. We know it’s all going to go to hell and it’s only a matter of time. Cameron plays a ballsy game making the audience wait so long for the terror to strike. Before the film sets out for LV-426 we’re perfectly honed in to Ripley’s headspace. We know her fears and anxieties are correct. We sympathize with her plight against Weyland-Yutani, which is all for naught.
So after spending so much time with Ripley – knowing she’s right and seeing the nightmares that wake her up coated in sweat every night, we’re primed and on the edge of our seat waiting…waiting.
Like Scott before him, Cameron uses setting and sound to his advantage to craft mood and unease. Cameron’s touch is more matter of fact and rough around the edges than Scott’s, but it’s just as effective. The more matter-of-fact hand of Cameron matches the characters and story being told.
The marine dropship flies over a ghost town that was once a human colony. Inside the complex the walls and ceiling are blown out, debris is littered everywhere and not a soul is to be found. The colony of LV-426 is haunted, just as the derelict was 57 years ago when the Nostromo found it.
The horror of Aliens is rooted in a finding yourself woefully unprepared against an insurmountable threat. It doesn’t matter who your skillset is or how tough you think you are. When you go up against an enemy you underestimate no amount of training or badassery can save you. If the lone Alien in the first film represented everything from the threat of sexual violence to the dangers of the unknown, the multitude the characters face in Aliens represent single-minded ferocity of nature when its purpose is purely survival.
You will sometimes run into the criticism that Cameron dumbs down the creatures in his film – making them nothing but space bugs and ruining their terrifying mystique. I don’t think it’s that simple. Yes, Cameron’s additions to the lore of the Xenomorph are more “standard” for the lack of a better term, but the film does indeed expand upon ideas found in Alien.
If one of the themes of Alien is birth, Aliens is about family and the homestead. LV-426 is the home of the Xenomorphs (or least these particular ones). They have come from a mysterious crashed ship, but they were there first. Weyland-Yutani colonized their home. The Colonial Marines are another invasive force. The entrance to the Hive is a masterclass in mounting suspense. The cold metal walkways and industrial spaces merge into a completely different environment as the marines make their way into the nest. It’s hot. Every inch of the place is covered in a black, organic material. The Xenomorphs are taking back their home.
They can blend into the nest with perfect ease, hiding in plain sight in front of the marines until it’s time to strike.
Instead of making the first major confrontation between the marines and Aliens a full-on firefight, Cameron chooses to focus on the confusing horror of the scene. Most of the action is off-screen as we see the terror stricken reactions of Ripley and Co. as they watch the unit fall victim the ambush. The bodycam footage is a frenzy of fire and screams. Lt. Gorman (William Hope), so concerned with running a smooth operation and proving himself an effective leader, locks up. It’s up to Ripley to do something to save the lives she can.
With most of the marines decimated and the remaining characters cut off from their ship The Sulaco, the film’s narrative becomes something of an under siege story with a ticking clock element. If the Aliens don’t take them out, the imminent explosion of the entire facility will. In this sense Aliens resembles something Night of the Living Dead more than being Exhibit A for robust 80s action bonanzas.
The vast majority of the action only takes place in the third act when the Aliens overwhelm our heroes in force. They sneak in through the ceiling in another expertly tense example of buildup and payoff. A loss of power bathes the setting in a hellish red, casting the Aliens in a demonic light. The crew of the Sulaco has landed in hell, and hell’s denizens are coming for them.
The third act of the film is where horror and action merge in perfect symbiosis. Ripley’s rescue mission of Newt is one of the most thrilling set pieces in horror. She has mere minutes before the entire place is dust and it’s her and her alone armed with some grenades and a flamethrower. Just as she thinks she’s home free, they find themselves in very heart of the nest…presided over by the Queen herself. The reveal of the Alien Queen is one of the coolest damn things in genre film history. The image is striking and the creature design is as perfect as it gets. She’s instantly intimidating. Just like how the Alien was shot in the first film, when you see the Queen you aren’t quite sure what you’re looking at at first.
She’s backlit against the darkness, boney protrusions and limbs tower over her brood. She’s the dark royalty of Hell.
Even without H.R. Giger’s creative input, legendary effects man Stan Winston and his team created a movie monster with all the subliminal elements of the original creature. The Queen is massive and less humanoid than her offspring, yet there is an undeniable femininity to her all the same. She’s lithe, agile, and the flatter, fanned out design of her head is obviously meant to evoke a crown.
The Power Loader fight between Ripley and the Queen is every bit a knockdown, drag out brawl as it is the final showdown between the hero and the monster we’ve seen in countless horror films leading up to Aliens and films following in its wake. The Queen fight is the monster showdown perfected with expert filmmaking craft.
James Cameron uses every trick in the book to make his film scary. He emphasizes the use of space and sound to craft suspense. He understands many of the same elements that makes a horror film scary are what make an action film thrilling. The way the camera captures space, the use of sound, the design of sets and locations – it all melds into a perfect tightrope walk of mixed genres.
So yes, Aliens is in fact an action film. A great one at that. It’s also one hell of a horror film. A classic one just like its predecessor. And it deserves to be seen as such.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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