31 MORE Days, 31 MORE Screams: Day 3 (Aliens)

I don't like it as much as Alien, but I'll be damned if my appreciation for it hasn't jumped up in places on this rewatch.

Pictured: Healing from trauma.

Oh yeah, we're free of the Ghost of September Past now. I'm writing this on the day of. Good lord almighty do I have egg on my face. I freely admit that. Last year I wrote about Alien, which is one of my favorite horror films. Here are those words and here is something I wrote near the end of that:

Aliens is a nice action movie, I guess, but Big Gun Fuck Man Vs. Scary Acid Blood Monster is slightly inferior to The Sexuality Slasher for me.

I mean, fuck me. I fucked it up. That is NOT what Aliens is at all. Oh, there are Big Gun Fuck Men (and Women) in it... but this is not a movie about them. It's partly about them and how they get totally fucked up by the aliens, but to me this movie is about Ripley, her trauma from the first movie, and her making attempts to heal that trauma and help someone else with their own trauma. It's all of this and far more shooty shooty gun gun than the original film had, but I nevertheless find myself with a new passion for Aliens. Let's delve into the Ripley stuff then, because it's what worked on me the most. Ripley wasn't quite the stereotypical Final Girl in Alien, but she ended up being the one who survived all that nasty shit on the Nostromo and even managed to blast a Xenomorph out of an airlock... albeit petrified the whole time and singing a song to herself to keep her nerves at bay. She lived, but nightmares are plaguing her. This shit fucked her up. Now, the Alien series is far from your typical slasher fare, but it's nonetheless a comparison I find myself coming back to. Final Girls have come back in horror movie sequels before. Off the top of my head there's Friday the 13th's Alice, who... died. Then there's Elm Street's Nancy, who... died. Halloween's Laurie Strode, who went through even more bullshit on the same goddamned night and (as of the upcoming film) will have dealt with this Myers shit for 40 fucking years. I haven't seen Halloween past #3 but Ripley's arc in Aliens feels different from those other girls'. Ripley survives her encounter in the first film, is traumatized... but gets to go back and confront her trauma. She wants to help the missing colonists of LV426, as well as destroy whatever xenomorph bullshit is down there. She wants in.

Cue the Colonial Marines, which... oof. For the most part, these fine young officers do not impress upon me at all. Vasquez is neat and I like the knife trick, but otherwise they're a bunch of space soldiers. A macho bullshit boy's club in space. Eugh. At least the dropship scene is cool as all hell, but that's James Cameron for you. It's here where my memory of what Aliens was clashes with what it actually is. I thought this movie was a guns blazing action fest, but it actually does build nice and slow once we get to LV426. It has a sense of atmosphere and a mystery present as we explore the abandoned colony and piece together what happened. The secret history of the Metroid series is right here... even though that game came out less than a month after this movie. If that wasn't time enough to inspire them, you can bet the sequels took influence... but later for that. I appreciate this slow build, and (save a jumpscare with a facehugger) we don't even see a Xenomorph until the hour mark when the Marines get outnumbered and most of them are culled. I don't know why I remembered this as a big action scene because it's an absolute chaos of terror, combining fast cut panic with the stealthy Xenomorphs with even a little found footage using the soldier cams. It's fucking great at being spooky. The soldiers who are left are the likeable ones, mostly, so that's something to be thankful for. All the boy's club bullshit stops once they all realize just how up shit creek they are, so thank god for that.


Then there's Newt, who's Ripley's mirror (SORRY NOT SORRY RAINIAC) in this film. I watched the theatrical cut this time, but I know we get lots of scenes on LV426 in the extended cut. I like this a little better because it preserves the mystery and spookiness of the Marines arriving on LV426, but also because it turns the massacre of the colony into its own lost Alien movie, with Newt as its traumatized Final Girl. Both Ripley and Newt have been horrified by the nightmares lurking on this planet, and it's Ripley who helps try and heal Newt's pain and take care of her. Oh yeah, the extended cut also has that scene where we find out Ripley's daughter died while Ripley was in hypersleep so MOTHERHOOD THEMING YAHOOOOO!!! That's present, but I like my trauma healing reading a lot better. Anyway, a lot of shit happens and it's not until the last quarter of the movie that it starts to resemble a bang bang action film. I do love the red lighting when the power goes, and all the crawling Xenomorphs and whatnot. Cool shit. Then Newt gets taken by the Aliens, and we get ourselves a tense climax where Ripley saves her but also comes across the Alien Queen. Here it is, then. The closest thing to the architect of all this trauma that Ripley can deal with (save Burke, but he's dead by now so not much to be done there). The thing which has taken over Newt's colony, the thing which breeds all these nightmares, the mother of all. Ripley faces her trauma head-on and shoots fire and grenades at it before escaping from the depths of the planet with a destruction countdown ongoing. ...Are we sure Nintendo didn't add that shit into Metroid after seeing this? Well, Alien had one of these too but Ripley didn't shoot the Queen to death before all of that. She didn't do it here either, surprise! Here's the Queen, back on the ship, facing down our cast with just as much determination. What her motives are, we don't know. Revenge? Animal instinct? Whatever they are, she's threatening dear Newt at the climax, making the poor girl scream and panic. Not even time to sing a song. Ripley's been in this situation before. Not again. Not this time.


Get away from her, you bitch.


The Power Loader fight scene is fucking masterful. Ripley is going toe-to-toe with the architect of her trauma and beating the absolute shit out of the Alien Queen. It's action packed and cathartic, and it even ends with more tense airlock shenanigans to blow the Queen out into space. Then our ending, which has only ever been optimistic if either A) It's between 1986 and 1992 when you watch this or B) You don't know shit about Alien 3. Without that looming future over our heads, we end on our two Final Girls, asleep and dreaming good dreams. Wow. When I took a more critical eye to this movie, it really rose up in my opinion. It hasn't dethroned Alien by any means, but it does what a great sequel should and expands and enhances the arcs and themes in the original. A lot of the subtle horror is lost, but there's more of it here than I took credit for. It's a different flavor and I still prefer the original, but this is really quite good!


Now, about that Metroid...