There's a beauty in horror.
The seductive nature of something terrifying.
And nowhere is that more present than in the design of H. R. Giger's Alien.
A film icon as influential as Dracula,
that brought an elegance to the grotesque and reshaped the way we think of movie monsters.
This is Hans Rudolf Giger known simply as "H.R."
A Swiss surrealist painter whose roots are in architecture and industrial design.
And his work has been described as a twisted combination of
the surreal, the mechanical, the sexual, and the macabre.
And even if you are not familiar with his work, you certainly know his influence.
An aesthetic so unique, it's earned its own adjective.
It's rare for something so disturbing
and darkly sensual to also be commercially appealing.
So, what's the story?
Well, in 1977,
director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Dan O'Bannon
approached Giger after seeing his work
in his book Necronomicon - a collection of Giger's airbrushed paintings.
This is Necronom IV.
It, along with it's companion piece Necronom V,
were used as the basis for the Xenomorph design.
Scott was so impressed with Giger's work,
he insisted on keeping the design faithful to the original painting,
interfering as little as possible.
His distorted blend of sci-fi and abstract industrialism
was perfect for that used future atmosphere they were attempting with the film.
And Giger's designs became such an integral part of the production
that he was also brought on to shape the entirety of LV-426
and everything within it.
Ridley Scott: "Gradually down the line I realized that it made a lot of sense to have Giger design everything
that was to do with the alien.
That includes the landscape
and the spacecraft,
and that everything that, that was Earthly
would be Michael Seymour and his team, right?
And so that made a lot of sense, you know?
Two separate brains working on two different worlds."
Up until 1979,
horror movie creatures were typically Earthbound entities;
Spiders, Sharks, lizardman, fishman, wolfman.
But Giger, as an outsider to the film industry,
wasn't bound by the common design tropes of the 70's.
He was able to create something genuinely alien.
A distorted biomechanical reflection of man.
Everything we fear about ourselves
exaggerated to the point of surrealism.
It's very difficult to interpret those airbrushed paintings
in three dimensions,
which is why they had Giger himself
fabricate the majority of the Alien sets and costumes.
They couldn't just tear apart a jet engine
and construct the set out of scrap metal
like they did with the Nostromo.
Giger's vision is very specific and very uniform.
A replication of the painting this accurate
could only come from the mind who created it.
And Giger, coming from a background in industrial design,
crafted everything with a practicality in mind.
The Alien's elongated head housing the secondary mouth,
the breathing apparatus on its back in place of a nose,
and of course, something with acidic blood
would be encased in an exoskeleton,
which, by the way, was made with real bones.
Along with condoms for its articulating lips,
and a human skull in the tip of its head.
Yes, a real human skull.
And coupled with the idea that
it wouldn't only take on the characteristics of its host,
but also its environment,
allowed it to blend perfectly
into the interior of the Nostromo,
adding to that claustrophobic terror.
But even outside its design,
one of the greatest aspects of the alien
is the logic in its mechanics.
You as an audience member
can understand everything there is to know
about the xenomorph's parasitic lifestyle
without the need for exposition or dialogue.
There's no expert that comes in to explain
the origins and the motivations of the creature.
Sinister (2012)Professor Jonas: "The symbol is associated
with a Pagan deity named Bughuul.
He consumes the souls of human children."
You learn the process visually
through the experience of the characters.
And every stage of it's evolution drives the narrative.
And, unlike your typical slasher movie antagonist,
the Alien isn't supernaturally invulnerable.
Dennis Parker, Alien(1979): "It's got a wonderful defense mechanism.
You don't dare kill it."
It's just as fragile
as anyone else on the ship,
but killing it can open a whole new series
of life-threatening problems for the characters.
So, brilliantly, the objective becomes escape.
It was Jaws that perfected the art of hiding
its creature for dramatic tension.
But that was done out of a necessity,
given that the shark was fairly unrealistic in close up.
But the Xenomorph works in bright light or in darkness,
and at every angle.
It's only seen in glimpses to accentuate
its ability to disturb and seduce,
because the Alien is a monster that you want to see,
and honestly, at a certain point,
it becomes almost too intriguing to be scary.
H. R. Griger talking...
Giger's Alien
is one of the most influential creature designs of the twentieth century.
It's become the crux of an empire of
games, movies, comics, and merchandise.
And somehow nearly forty years later,
it still has the power to terrify, excite, and arouse in equal measures.
It's a creature that, to this day, has seen no equal,
and is one of the most beautifully haunting nightmares
ever put to film.
H. R. Griger: "When the work was finished on the Alien
I thought it will be something special,
but I didn't know that it would be so important,
and I remember Gordon Carroll
saying, "You know, you will get famous with this film"
and I just thought, "Oh my god, I.."
I wouldn't be so successful,
probably, as with the Alien film, know, as the thing of the-
People always know me as the...
the father of this Alien,
And...
It's okay."