Lunatics Radio Hour
The history of horror and the horror of history.
Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 154 - The History of Space Horror: Part 2
Abby and Alan continue to discuss the vast history of space horror in film, with a focus on one of the most famous horror franchises of all time, Alien.
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Sources
- A New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik: The War Inside H.G. Wells from 2021
- New York Times Article by Mekado Murphy: How ‘Alien’ Spawned So Many Others from 2017
- ArtNet.com article by Tim Brinkhof: As Seen on ‘Alien’: H.R. Giger’s Biomorphic Nightmare
- War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast transcripts by HG Wells.
- New Yorker Article by Dan Chiasson from 2018: “2001: A Space Odyssey”: What It Means, and How It Was Made
- PublicBooks.com article by Eleanor Johnson: Speaking the Monster: Ecofeminism in “Alien” and “Aliens”
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I am Abbey Brenker sitting here with Alan Kudan.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:And today we are picking up our conversation around space horror and really getting into, I would say, one of the most iconic, not even just space horror, but film franchises of all time, and of course I'm talking about Alien. But let's take a step back. Why I love Alien.
Speaker 2:I know I know, I know, I know I'm stopping you. We got to talk about alien. Okay, I just want to, so good.
Speaker 1:I agree, and I'm going to let you have tons of airtime in this episode.
Speaker 1:There's one thing I want to say make it quick which is that last episode we we went through all the sources, which are going to be in the description of this podcast as well, so you can see the sources that we've used for the research that is being presented today. But also we spent a lot of time last episode categorizing different space horror films. Right, so the first category are aliens on Earth or extraterrestrial things on Earth in a sort of calm way here to communicate with us. The second category was similar but different in that it was alien invasion. And then we got into space horror truly like horror set in space, with 2001, a Space Odyssey. So now it is time to talk about one of the most iconic space horror, but film franchises, horror franchises of all time Alien.
Speaker 2:OK, take it away, Abby.
Speaker 1:Alien was released in 1979. The film was directed by Ridley Scott and stars Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. Alien is such an excellent example of space horror for many reasons, but one of them being that it exemplifies so many different elements of the subgenre, so I'm going to kind of break it down that way. For instance, one of the things that is, I think, most terrifying organically about space is this idea and fear of isolation.
Speaker 2:Well, you can't breathe in space. It's a fact.
Speaker 1:Sure, and that's part of it right, there's danger everywhere, there's unknown everywhere. It's kind of like ocean horror in that way deep sea horror, but also there's this again ocean horror in that way, deep sea horror, but also there's this again fear of isolation helplessness in this great expanse this great void.
Speaker 2:Isn't it interesting that in this great expanse and void, the number one horror mechanic in space horror is claustrophobia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a thousand percent, because what you're talking about, right, like not being able to breathe, but also in a lot of this horror, it's on small ships with tight corridors and people die and you're alone and you know, and it's just so ripe with things that could go wrong.
Speaker 1:If you panic and open a window, you're dead. In so many other films but a few examples Event Horizon from 1997, sunshine from 2007, the Cloverfield Paradox from 2018, moon from 2009, the Martian from 2015, gravity from 2013, and, of course, 2001, a Space Odyssey from 1968. What's really cool about science fiction and space horror, in my opinion, is that often the creators will take a really basic human emotion or fear again, like desolation, abandonment, isolation something that many people can relate to and transpose that fear onto a situation that we likely are totally unfamiliar with, like being on a space station or another planet. But because we have an inherent fear of isolation, right or claustrophobia or whatever it is, we have an inherent appreciation for the total vastness of space and we have this inherent appreciation for the total vastness of space in the unknown. Suddenly that isolation feels totally all-consuming and horrifying and relatable.
Speaker 2:Gosh, if I had a nickel for every time I felt desolated. You really lumped some movies in there that are quite different.
Speaker 1:But don't you think they all explore the themes of isolation? The theme of isolation yes, that's the sentence that I said. Yes, but that's yeah sure, here we go, pick it apart now.
Speaker 2:But that's any movie on a spaceship where shit goes wrong.
Speaker 1:Okay, floor is yours.
Speaker 2:Let him cook man. So are we talking about alien? Are we talking about these other movies? You got you.
Speaker 1:You got to keep me on the rails here now we're talking about alien, but if there's anything you want to say about those movies, now is the time okay, the other movies?
Speaker 2:yeah, let's. Let's start with sunshine. Okay, it's such a big film when you think about it, just the idea of the sun is going out. There's an expedition that is sending a nuclear payload into the sun to restart the fusion process. Humanity has sent one previous expedition and it just they lost track with it and they've since scrapped together Earth's very last resources to send one final one. In this case you don't have just the well-being of the crew, which of course, is paramount because, like, they're the protagonists, but if this fails, earth will die and it's going to be like a very slow nuclear winter type death because you know they'll just freeze, which is really like horrific. I love that movie. I also love Cillian Murphy, one of my favorite actors of all time. I wish he did more stuff outside of like losing him for like 30 years to Peaky Blinders. Just put him in more horror. He's so freaking good.
Speaker 2:He's so good, he really is, and what a handsome guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's pretty hot. I also do want to talk briefly about the Martian, because we actually ended up explaining the plot of the Martian to your mom recently for, I would say, a good 40 minutes.
Speaker 2:I mean that's being generous. It took a lot longer.
Speaker 1:You were trying to make a point about potatoes and somehow we ended up talking about the martian she just didn't understand the concept that you could take a piece of a potato and grow more potatoes plant it and grow more potatoes and so she didn't believe me when I talked about it like scientifically, about how people actually grow potatoes. So alan was like you know what? You know what's going to convince her and break through Talking about the Martian she loves.
Speaker 2:Matt Damon, another handsome guy. This seems like a slam dunk. This was a perfect example of space horror through kind of like a comedic lens, you know, because this is all about the tone of the writing. Right, I've seen the movie, but I love the book more. In the book, you know, it's all these like little micro chapters, because it's just the journal of Mark Watney.
Speaker 1:And it's all about that. Call down.
Speaker 2:That's an epistolary novel. Very good, and it is.
Speaker 2:I learned that from you because you're so smart and it's just about the domineering, about the domineering spirit of man. But on the flip side, this could have 100% just been a horror novel. Right Of this man venting his fears and insecurities as he slowly succumbs to death. And that's what the Martian is. But he's slowly succumbing to death, but instead he's dealing with like an upbeat can do, attitude of like well, how do I live for the next three days? Maybe I'll do this. Okay, cool, we got through three days. Now how do I live for the next I don't know 600?
Speaker 1:Let's try this instead well, I'll say the tone of it too, and it's not really horror, but the tone of the martian is sort of what makes it so charming and stand out. You know, the story itself isn't revolutionary and I I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that it takes what you expect from these situations and instead of giving you like some kind of like cheeky toning, tongue-in-cheek character who's a badass or whatever, it gives you kind of like a goofy guy, you know I want to give you know, a round of applause to andy weir, the, the author of the martian, and honestly all of his works, because he basically takes a character, puts them into these impossible situations and then just removes the fear and replaces it with science right so, uh, the other huge andy weir novel is project hill mary oh, I've never heard of that oh, it's so, so good.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna say a thing about the novel because everyone should just read it, okay it's so, so good, uh, but another doomsday scenario.
Speaker 2:And the character deals with these mind-shattering scenarios with science, where it's like, well, I don't have no idea what to do in the situation. But one plus one still equals two. So you know, let's see what we can do with math speaking of matt damon, do you think interstellar is space horror? We talked about this during part one of the series Space horror is a very gray area with science fiction and interstellar. No, I wouldn't classify that as horror, but there's certainly horrific elements.
Speaker 1:I, yeah, I agree, but there's moments in that movie where you're understanding, not to use a pun, but the gravity of what's happening in a situation Like to me black holes, like there's nothing more horrifying, you know, and Than a black hole. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Really why.
Speaker 1:It's just such an unconquerable enemy.
Speaker 2:Why an enemy? It's a force of nature. Right, but if you are in, a situation, do you say a tsunami is an enemy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the natural disaster Like a tsunami, is also like a thing like a black hole, is like minding its own business. It's never going to be the case unless the whole of Earth is sucked into a black hole in my lifetime that I'm going to have to deal with it or think about it. Based on right. It's this very like basic concept of this portal, this vortex of destruction that is slow and unstoppable and sucks anything into its path, into it and there's no way out and you get spaghettified right if you go close to it and it's just, it's impossible, it's an impossibility to avoid if you're in its way it will always win ah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:Is there any definitive black hole horror movies?
Speaker 1:well, there are a few that come up. One is high life starring robert pattinson, and then event horizon, a few things called black hole, but I can't vouch for, uh, for those movies well, event horizon is unofficial or hammer 40k lore is it? Yes, that's interesting in event horizon.
Speaker 2:They use a black hole effectively to travel to, to breach dimensions, and that dimension being the warp. There's warhammer 40k people that understand this better, but they effectively breach into another dimension. That dimension is hell or the the hell equivalent sure and so these like demon forces start because equivalent exchange. Right, we're sending energy into that dimension, so energy has to come into ours. All this demonic energy mind warping stuff, physical entities is taking manifest in our dimension because of physics and shit fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you heard recordings of the sounds of a black hole? No I think if you had heard that, you would also associate them as the wildest, most scary enemy.
Speaker 2:It would make sense that it's loud. Do you understand? Okay, how much? What organization had an intern that was willing to go to a black hole with a microphone to record that? Nasa, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:They didn't go to the black hole. They picked up on the sound waves coming from space. You're a sound engineer. They picked up on the sound waves coming from space. You're a sound engineer, you understand this. There's no sound in space, what, of course, there is.
Speaker 2:What, how Sound, is the vibration of molecules? There's molecules in space, not enough to touch each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No sure, there's a certain amount of hydrogen atoms, but they're not close enough to interact with each other. There is no sound in space.
Speaker 1:Are you talking about this like the word space, as in like distance?
Speaker 2:What? No? Space is a vacuum.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about outer space.
Speaker 2:Outer space is a vacuum.
Speaker 1:There's sound in outer space If you clap your hands in space.
Speaker 2:You could not hear it.
Speaker 1:So all the space horror movies where people are talking, that's people go to space not hear it. So all the space horror movies where people are talking.
Speaker 2:That's people go to space. They don't talk on space stations, they're talking in?
Speaker 1:I know that they do. I've heard recordings of the astronauts inside space stations.
Speaker 2:They have atmosphere, sound, travels through air. Right there's no air in space there's sound in space there is no sound in space.
Speaker 1:How did they get this recording then?
Speaker 2:So a few different ways. One is that they either used oh.
Speaker 1:NASA released new audio approximating the sound of a black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster. Experts discovered it had a pitch of over quote million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing, making it too deep to be heard.
Speaker 2:The bottom threshold of human hearing is 20 hertz like, so this was a million billion times deeper a million billion. When you think of like whales right, they sound kind of goofy yeah but that's because you're only hearing a very small fraction of what they're actually saying their whole range. The vast majority of it is subharmonics.
Speaker 1:Can they approximate that? Because that would be cool to hear.
Speaker 2:Well, sure, but then all they do is they pitch, shift it up and into the threshold of human hearing.
Speaker 1:What do you think about the movie Gravity?
Speaker 2:I've only seen it once. I think Sandra Bullock is incredible. Yeah, I think she was best in Miss Congeniality, sure, but Gravity is very good. It's a very good film. It really encapsulates the helplessness of being a Earth-originating Simeon-like being and then being thrust into a zero-gravity environment that has to breathe through a suit.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, like we were never supposed to be in space, yet here we are.
Speaker 1:I also think it takes a really strong actor to be able to carry a movie like that when you're alone for the majority of the film, and she does a really good job. My one complaint is the amount of like little grunts she makes. But that was. You know, that wasn't her choice. Anyway, alan, let's talk about Alien.
Speaker 2:Whose choice was it?
Speaker 1:The director's. I assume Sanjay wants the grunt. Another common space horror element that we see in Alien is an enemy, in this case the ultimate predator the Xenomorph. The Xenomorph is an apex predator, impossibly strong and intelligent, and throughout the franchise the audience becomes experts on the life cycle of this creature, from eggs to facehugger, to chestburster and finally the adult Xenomorph. An adult Xenomorph has a spiny exoskeleton body that acts as armor and makes it again incredibly strong and impenetrable. It's outfitted with acid blood and a secondary inner jaw that allows it to bite through a human skull.
Speaker 2:That's his little mouth.
Speaker 1:For me, the xenomorph, in all of its phases, triggers an instinctual fear. I may not often encounter aliens, but I do encounter horrible bugs and other earthly creatures that are unpleasant. This is obviously drawing on those fears, right? The Xenomorph was designed by HR Geiger. Geiger was a Swiss surrealist artist. He was known for what the internet calls a dark biomechanical aesthetic. His work has influenced many different elements of horror and science fiction aesthetics.
Speaker 1:The filmmakers knew how important the design of the xenomorph was to the movie. Producer Walter Hill even said that the success of the movie depended on the creature design. Quoting from the Artnetcom article by Tim Brinkhoff. Quote the xenomorph has become so iconic that it is difficult to imagine it looking any different from what we ended up seeing on screen. That said, scott's team actually cycled through a number of designs before settling on the final version. One of the first iterations, designed by American-Australian artist Ron Cobb, who previously worked on Star Wars Episode IV, a New Hope from 1977, apparently resembled a massive four-legged crab.
Speaker 1:Dissatisfied with this design, scott turned to a different artist named HR Giger. Born in Switzerland, giger was known for his paintings of demonic biomechanical creatures, drawn in a style so unique that it was given rise to the term Giger-esque. When Scott stumbled across the artist Necronomicon, a 1977 coffee table compendium of his greatest work, the director was so impressed that he decided to bring him onto the project, end quote. And if you do look up Geiger's Necronom 4 artwork, the piece that directly inspired the design of the xenomorph, you see how truly similar it is the design of the xenomorph. You see how truly similar it is.
Speaker 1:Even though Geiger was a 2D artist, he took on the task of translating his designs and his art into the 3D creature. Famously, he used condoms for the creature's lips and put a real human skull into the head to perfect the anatomy of his design. The Artnetcom article makes a great point about Geiger's lack of recognition for his work on Alien. He did win an Academy Award for visual effects, but every single expansion of the franchise takes his work and uses it or iterates on it freely. The Xenomorph is the ultimate predator in terms of look, strength, skills and tools A horrifying, unrelenting and visceral enemy, someone say similar to a black hole so the xenomorph is one of my favorite horror movie villains, simply because they're so freaking cool.
Speaker 2:The xenomorph that we're all familiar with from the hr geiger drawings, which, if you look up, are incredibly sexual, very phallic. I mean not just that, just like they're they're phallic, but they're also effeminate, like, it's just a very sleek. It just it. Just it oozes power and like. But that's the point. And so you learn later on in the alien mythos, you know, these are engineered beings. This is not just some like alien species, right, that, you know, is invading, right, it's not that at all right, this is the absolute pinnacle of genetic engineering to make the ultimate killing machine. One of the things that helps with hunting is having this like sexual sleekness. It's, it's just like this extra layer of disarmament, of superiority, you know is that your?
Speaker 1:my interpretation is almost like. It's just like a stripped down being right. It's not a being that has shame around any of these things and it just is, in its nature, right. It is a being that reproduces a certain way, it is a being that hunts a certain way, and it just doesn't have any pretense about that I I think you hit said the perfect word like it's all the the being is all about reproduction.
Speaker 2:It's its sole purpose is reproduction, right, right, which I mean is true about most organisms everywhere, sure, but you know, this is the encapsulation of the idea, and when you have an artist behind it, of course they're going to kind of go hand in hand. I also love how the xenomorph changes the appearance based off the seed species. For Alien 1 and two we see the same type of xenomorph.
Speaker 2:And that's because it is a, for lack of a better term. It's a xenomorph egg that you know becomes the little facehugger thing and then latches onto a human and then we see the full developed xenomorph based off gestating inside of a human. It's in the later series, 3 and onwards, when we see the full swath of xenomorphs. They kind of like pick and choose different bits of genetic code based off what is the most superior bit of the seed organism right in alien 3 it infects a doberman and then you get this quadruped xenomorph.
Speaker 2:That's super fast, super strong and becomes the the ultimate thing. And it based off of what a fucking dog. You'd think a human would be a superior hunter. But all the intelligence comes from the xenomorph right. But it just takes certain physical attributes from, from the dog.
Speaker 1:It's kind of cool, yeah, very interesting. So another and you hinted at this earlier, alan but another major theme in space horror, as demonstrated by Alien, is claustrophobia. So we see it in Alien and in the whole franchise, but we also see it in found footage space horror movie Apollo 18 from 2011,. Event Horizon, the Last Day on Mars from 2013,. 400 Days from 2015,. And the Silent Sea from 2021.
Speaker 1:In addition to other horror elements that push Alien over the edge from pure science fiction to space horror, like extreme body horror for one, alien also plays with feminism in a huge way. Not only is Ripley one of the most iconic female action heroes of all time, the movie plays with gender in a few fascinating different ways. Ripley was originally written as a male character. The original script featured a six-person all-male crew. The Ripley character was originally called Martin Robbie. Ripley is strong mentally and physically. She's crafty and resourceful and brave, and beyond that, her character breaks with traditional gender stereotypes in a delightful way. She wants to follow quarantine protocol instead of bringing Kane back on board after infection. Right, she's cool, she's logical, she's intellectual.
Speaker 2:Oh, a woman that wants to follow the rules, huh.
Speaker 1:There are also some feminist reads that the xenomorph queen is a symbol of feminism. In the franchise I'm quoting from the Public Books article by Eleanor Johnson, quote In an incredible moment of interspecies communication, the alien mother looks at Ripley, sees that she too is trying to protect her child, and so the alien mother signals to her daughters to back off and she lets Ripley pass. There is a flickering moment of interspecies recognition when the alien mother decides that she will not attack. All xenomorphs are female.
Speaker 2:They reproduce, they proliferate and they need some exterior genetic material to make that so.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. I believe that is the case. Picking up the quote again For a flickering moment, the monster becomes human. But the film cannot tolerate that level of radicalism. As soon as she and Newt are almost out, ripley sees an egg opening and she decides to torch the entire nest. The film thus scuttles the possibility of interspecies understanding. The mother alien becomes a horrifying predator again and for the rest of the film. And then skipping ahead a little bit here, we're talking about aliens, by the way.
Speaker 1:Yes, skipping ahead a little bit here and this may be the alien movie's signature move to model how patriarchal culture distracts people from capitalism's parasitism by designating women whether witches, prostitutes, midwives, priestesses, political activists, those who want to terminate pregnancies or protective mothers as the real threat to the status quo. End quote. Alien was so successful that it inspired five main sequels and or prequels and spinoffs, but more so. Alien was one of the most successful space, horror and science fiction movies ever made. Not only did it bring this genre to way more people than had previously experienced it, it also influenced so many movies since its initial release. With a budget of $11 million, it went on to make $184 million globally. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $700 million in 2025 money. It's one of the highest grossing films of 1979, proving that sci-fi horror could be a blockbuster genre. Alien currently holds a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert called it quote one of the scariest movies ever made. End quote.
Speaker 1:Aliens was released in 1986. It also stars Sigourney Weaver, along with Carrie Henn and Bill Paxton. Aliens was directed by none other than James Cameron and Alan. Tell us. Tell us about the rest of the Alien franchise, please.
Speaker 2:Oh geez, here we go. So the original Alien was indeed a pinnacle of science fiction films in general, but it's a really small story. It's ripley on a ship. They investigate lv 426 and they gets, they encounter some eggs and they bring it back and it's bad. All all these things right, but it's all about ripley on the ship, well, with the rest of the crew, for a very limited amount of time, but it's a very self-contained story of Ripley surviving on a ship against a single alien.
Speaker 2:It's a small, contained environment rife with horror, and it kind of wrote the book on how to do horror movie villains. Well, you don't show the villain, you let the audience interpret what you think they look like. You show them absolutely. It's like jaws, you know. You show it absolutely minimally, only when you have to, and you let fear do the rest of the work. Also, ripley besides, just, you know, being a final girl was a perfect example of you're smart. You don't do all the dumb shit that everyone else is doing in these slasher movies ripley is like the perfect final girl.
Speaker 1:I just want to say that.
Speaker 2:She makes great decisions. She's up against impossible odds. This isn't Michael Myers, who walks really slow and, you know, maybe pops out of the closet and you can beat by poking a clothes hanger in his eye. You know, this is a xenomorph that is mostly bulletproof. You can't even use blades on him because you'll burn to death from his acid blood. You have to be insanely smart and Ripley really wrote the book on how to be a smart woman protagonist and it's really cool. Then you move on to aliens where so an alien? On to aliens where so an alien. The xenomorph had all the weapons and ripley had nothing. In aliens the humans have all the guns right and the aliens have whatever right and it's kind of a slaughter in the on the uh humans side and it's it's more of an action movie. They transitioned perfectly from a horror movie to a sci-fi action movie and that is one of the reasons why the franchise really kicked off was because they went immediately for a broader audience why, like?
Speaker 1:what do you think is the difference in tone that makes alien horror and aliens shift into action, sci-fi?
Speaker 2:in the first one, ripley was helpless. Did she even have a flamethrower? In the first one, I remember. But it's her versus one alien with no guns. She had nothing. Everything she had was improvised. And then in aliens she comes with a team of marines and she is the consultant and she said okay, if you're to fight the xenomorphs, this is what you need, all these fucking guns, everything that you think you need. Double it. And they fought. They actually listened. It's a action movie. But also when they get there, the stakes that everyone prepared for were tripled. So they were still kind of overwhelmed. And you know they they do okay, but it is an action movie and it's just the greatest battle. At the end, with ripley and the fucking uh mech fighting the xenomorph queen, you know, with her, her cargo loader punching it into the airlock, it's so cool what about the other films in the franchise?
Speaker 1:I mean, I I have personally seen alien romulus, but I know we're not there yet. I know there's some. We're not there yet, there's some films.
Speaker 2:Next comes alien three, okay, and, and then that is ripley on a penal colony and that is kind of like. In the first one, the xenomorph had the upper, they had the advantage. The second one, the human had the advantage. And the second one, the human had the advantage, and the third one, everyone has the advantage. But it's kind of dumb. Okay, it's, it's a cool idea. They crash land on a penal colony. There's a lot that goes on. This was supposed to be the end of the franchise we love a good trilogy yep, but money talks right, sure, and the franchise makes too much money.
Speaker 2:Enter alien 4 resurrection. Guess what ripley's back. So mild spoiler for alien 3 fast forward 30 seconds if you don't listen to this. But the end of alien 3. She is infected by xenomorph, so she is going to, you know, chest burst out right. Instead she commits suicide. She jumps into a giant vat of molten steel like terminator just like terminator, but they resurrect her with dna and after many, many failed attempts, they resurrect her and the xenomorph inside her oh because they're trying to bring the xenomorph back, because it's all about biological warfare.
Speaker 1:So now, is she in every movie. Sigourney weaver in all of the movies no, oh so yeah, she comes back.
Speaker 2:They extract the xenomorph from her through surgery. She also is like part xenomorph because it was like a cloning thing. Okay, it's kind of weird you know she's not a human that was like part xenomorph because it was like a cloning thing. It's kind of weird, sure. You know she's not a human that was infected with xenomorph. She was a human that was bred with xenomorph DNA. So she's kind of like you know superpowers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:She's got superpowers. It's a bad movie but it's really fun. You should all watch it. Okay, but it's bad. After Alien Resurrection, which was the equivalent of Halloween H2O okay, yep, you know, not Halloween Resurrection, no, halloween H2O. Okay it's. It's cool, it's really cool, but it kind of jumps the shark, sure, then you move into the next era of the franchise, uh, which is Prometheus.
Speaker 1:I saw Prometheus in theaters.
Speaker 2:Prometheus is a horrible movie the first time you watch it.
Speaker 1:I agree. I was like am I an idiot?
Speaker 2:you're not an idiot. You're only an idiot because you didn't watch the two-hour youtube explanation of what you're actually watching right now. Had you watched some guy on youtube tell you everything that's going on, everything about the engineers and whatnot and what everything means and everything I watched? I watched prometheus. I thought it was boring as hell, it made no sense. And then I watched my youtube explanation, which was longer than the Prometheus movie, and then I went back and rewatched Prometheus. I'm like, wow, the perfect film.
Speaker 1:You know what, though? There's art that I will work for, but blockbuster movies not art that I'm going to work for. You got to make me, you got to bring me along on the ride.
Speaker 2:I'll give. I'll give them this. After I watched the mythos, I'm like you know what?
Speaker 1:fuck yeah why does it make you think it's the perfect movie?
Speaker 2:it's not the perfect movie, but it's a very cool amount of world building sure, because I've heard this before from bros.
Speaker 1:a lot of bros say prometheus is the the perfect movie? And I'm like, even in a perfect world where this movie is accessible, why is it perfect?
Speaker 2:Nothing about this movie is accessible. You have to access it on your own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not going to do that for a movie that plays in a major theater, in an AMC. Yeah, I mean OK. So then what happens after Prometheus? After Prometheus but Prometheus is a prequel.
Speaker 2:Prometheus is a prequel, yeah. And then we move on to Covenant, and in Covenant it's just more cool alien shenanigans. We have the absolute coolest droid played by Michael Fassbender. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he's just so cool. I'm sorry. Like Michael Fassassbender, he's a fantastic actor. Yeah, he makes a wonderful magneto and he makes an even better robot.
Speaker 1:you put them together whoa, yeah, wow, I want to see that, but no, he's, it's so encapsulating.
Speaker 2:Alien Covenant is not a great movie on its own, it's not even good, but as part of a greater whole it's a pinnacle piece because it really expands certain aspects of the franchise. And you really learn these things once you keep moving forward. And I hate having to say that you need to see the entire thing to appreciate it, because that really doesn't make for a good film, right. But when you watch all these things back to back, you're like this makes so much sense sure but the fact that these things come out like seven years apart, you're like oh, fuck yourself, right.
Speaker 2:But then, after that comes romulus and I.
Speaker 1:I can jump in here.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Romulus stars Rain, it's her name and it's excellent. I knew very little at the time when I saw Romulus. I'd seen Alien a long time ago and Prometheus and that was it and I thought it stood alone. And I know some diehard fans thought it was horrible, laughed out loud at it, but I thought it was a fun film.
Speaker 2:I have no major issues with romulus, it's super fun anytime you have a droid that is kind of an anti-hero, it's, it's an, it's an, I'm on board yeah it's, it's interesting I also like that the main dynamics in romulus are friendship and like siblings and not everything is romantic. I thought that was kind of refreshing and cool I think that is a cornerstone of the Alien franchise though, is that you have relationships with women that have nothing to do with romance.
Speaker 1:Feminism strikes again.
Speaker 2:Which, for some crazy reason, is unique to the Alien franchise. I want to say that one of the best told stories in the Alien franchise is actually from one of their video games called Alien Isolation.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And you play as Eleanor Ripley's daughter. This actually takes place between Alien and Aliens, when Ripley is technically in stasis in between planets because she takes jonesy the cat, you know into her little pod and she goes to sleep. There's like 50 years that go by and she has a daughter and after like 10 years or so, the daughter becomes old enough. That's like I'm gonna go find my mom and she starts finding all the clues to like what the fuck happened in the stromo. And then she ends up going to this space station and there's a bunch of bad shit, isn't that? When Romulus takes place too, romulus takes. Yes, romulus also takes place during the same time period. Yeah, and fun fact about Romulus is that you can actually see Ripley's ship moored in the background of one of the shots. That's cool. So, like you know, I mean, they're not looking for Ripley, they don't know anything about it, right, but she's there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, her daughter is like, clearly looking for her mother but having to deal with rogue, droids, xenomorphs, all these things, but she has, like, all the strength of her mother because you know same genes.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Mixed with all these things, but she has, like, all the strength of her mother because, you know, same genes. Yeah, mixed with it's a video game. So like the stakes are so much higher. Cool, that's very fun. And in the game the xenomorph is immortal. You cannot kill the xenomorph it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:We'll take a bow, alan. Thank you for your alien recap you're welcome. And if we're talking about alien, we should also mention a film that influenced it, a film called called it the Terror from Beyond Space, from 1958.
Speaker 2:Not Stephen King's, it no.
Speaker 1:It, the Terror from Beyond Space. The film was directed by Edward L Kahn and written by Jerome Bixby. It tells the story of the second time a spacecraft from Earth is able to make it to Mars. The second expedition is looking to investigate what happened to the first crew, which they discovered crashed into the planet. They find only one survivor on board.
Speaker 1:But there are similarities between it the terror from beyond space and Alien in the form of an alien stalking and terrorizing humans. But that wasn't the only film that influenced Alien. Quoting from the New York Times article by Mikado Murphy, quote even with its high-tech visual effects and intricate sets, alien is fundamentally a horror movie about crew members getting picked off one by one. Mr Scott said that when he first read the Alien script by Dan O'Bannon, quote, it was frankly what I would call a very well-written B-movie, and we carried it out in an A-way with a terrific cast and a fantastic monster. Those B-movie undertones were what emerged in the low-budget alien knockoffs that came after, like Galaxy of Terror from 1981, and perhaps best known for sexual assaults committed by a giant worm.
Speaker 2:We watched Galaxy of Terror, holy fuck.
Speaker 1:And Dark Universe from 1993, which features Joe Estevez and a poorly made monster, end quote. I do not think that I watched Galaxy of Terror.
Speaker 2:You did. You were right next to me. Galaxy of Terror I really don't know what to say about this movie. It seemingly checks every box that I want in a movie while simultaneously satisfying none. It's a psychological horror, sci-fi fantasy where everyone's like greatest fears are coming to life. Like that was a really, really weird, disturbing movie that was overly graphic. I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. Also, the effects were bad while simultaneously incredibly graphic. I can't explain it.
Speaker 2:Okay, two thumbs down over here, no, but like two thumbs really up, that plummet down I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's okay, you're getting emotional, I don't want to talk about it. In general. The 1990s saw an influx in space horror movies, including Event Horizon, again from 97, spear from 98, species from 95, and, of course, jason X from 2001. Have you seen Species? Nope.
Speaker 2:Do you know the premise?
Speaker 1:Tell us the premise of Species, Alan.
Speaker 2:The premise is that a species wants to mate, so they become a sexy thing and seduce Yikes, and it's a long-running franchise.
Speaker 1:Understood.
Speaker 1:Obviously, these run the spectrum between silly and serious, and I wonder if this can partially be explained by a growing interest in science fiction and also the advancements in CGI and other special effects that allowed for space horror movies to be produced in better quality.
Speaker 1:This is also something that came up a bit in our AI series that certain filmmakers were literally waiting for effects to be good enough to make scripts that they already had to make, scripts that they already had. Quoting again from the New York Times article by Murphy, quote the horror in space premise has also been executed with more creativity and bigger budgets. There was Event Horizon, in which the crew, including Lawrence Fishburne, was tormented by hallucinations and Doom, with Dwayne Johnson from 2005, in which the crew was done in by mutated Martians, mars and attacks also factored this year into life, in which crew members like Ryan Reynolds were taken down by an organism they found on the Red Planet. And the horror space concept converged in a more outrageous way in Jason X, the 2001 entry in the Friday, the 13th franchise that sent the film's killer title into space along with androids.
Speaker 2:End quote I'm so glad you brought up doom, because it's a very unique doom, not dune doom.
Speaker 1:Yes, d-o-o-m.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying it for the audience doom due to scientific experiments into extra dimensional travel. They open a rift on mars into another dimension and once again, just like Event Horizon, the rift they open is into hell, which you know that's pretty bad. And then one guy says, oh, I got to take care of this. And then he just cocks his shotgun and goes to town. And that is the entire premise of Doom, of one guy fucking up all of hell Dang.
Speaker 1:that's pretty rock and roll. It's pretty cool. Another concept that I love, which I was first pointed to in Murphy's New York Times article, is the space heroine Final Girl. Obviously, Ripley is the most iconic example of this, but she isn't the only one. Quoting one more time from Murphy's words, quote horror films thrive on the concept of the final girl, the last one left standing to fend off the maniacal killer. But Sigourney Weaver, as Ripley in the Alien films, made the transition from survivor to full-blown sci-fi action hero. She paved the way for other leading women in space, from Jodie Foster in Contact to Sandra Bullock in Gravity Within the Alien universe. Noomi Rapace took the heroic reins in Prometheus. I mean, they took from the best.
Speaker 2:You're never going to beat Ripley.
Speaker 1:I feel like Ripley has like Sarah Connor vibes.
Speaker 2:She 100% has Sarah Connor vibes. Well sorry, sarah Connor is insane. She's insane in all the right ways, sure, but she is insane, sure, where her paranoia is off the charts. And because of that she prepares her son, you know, for who knows what might come right in this case, ripley has everything right in front of her, but no one believes her, so she's left to, kind of like, deal with this on her own right. Not too dissimilar from Sarah Connor, but you know, it's a she kind of makes more of a self-fulfilling prophecy yeah, fair enough, and I do want to take a moment.
Speaker 1:I know this is controversial for Contact. I know it's not pure horror, but it remains one of my favorite films of all time and for me there's like real heart in Contact. Right, it's a love story. It's a story about family. It's a father and a daughter. It's a story about grief and loss. It's a story about grief and loss, but it's also a story about a woman working in a man's fields and it is terrifying on that level alone. But on other levels.
Speaker 2:Women working in men's fields is horrifying.
Speaker 1:But there's these moments, like, for example, when Jodie Foster is walking into this machine, where the situation is so unnerving because A people don't want her to be there so much that they're blowing the shit up, or they don't want it to happen in general. They don't want her to do be the one to do it. They pick someone else first, even though she deserved it, and then she finally gets this moment of this thing that she's been fighting for and deserves. But what it is is is this machine that's so unknown and there's just something about the situation of that that's so. She's so brave, right, and whatever. But the movie sort of takes these turns right. It starts as kind of this wholesome drama movie about like a father and a daughter, and then it takes another turn where we realize, okay, she's a scientist and she's dealing with all these satellites, but then boom, there's contact, right.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting that you say that because you know we've seen so many movies where the man just goes against all the rules and does you know what he thinks is right and it's corny.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But then when the woman does it, you're like, wow, she's so brave.
Speaker 1:Well, because she doesn't have that liberty generally right.
Speaker 2:I'm not criticizing this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm—.
Speaker 1:You're pointing out the difference in the reception of those actions.
Speaker 2:Also, it's more of just like a difference in the writing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, generally when someone is writing the man doing it, it's from like an action movie, when it's a horror movie, it's the woman, isn't? That crazy Sure.
Speaker 1:The second turn I think contact makes is when the machine is actually built and we see it for the first time. I don't know about you, but the imagery of that moment again, when I saw this movie however old I was right, I was quite young Four the imagery, though, of that machine, like, will stick with you forever. It is so alienoid and bizarre and impressive that it's kind of like this movie started off with a guy and his daughter and a ham radio. And here we are under this, like billionaire's waterfall, right, like it really has some strange twists and turns in it, and then, of course, right when she goes on her journey, it's it's a whole nother thing, but I just wanted to to talk about it because it holds a dear place in my heart and I think again, really the cool thing about space horror is that so much of it can be situational in a way that science fiction isn't right.
Speaker 1:Star Wars is not horror, it's science fiction, it's action, but it's not really horror. It has dark moments, but even dark moments when you have Darth Vader or other things, compared to the impending vacuum of a black hole, it seems light and silly. Right, it's not horror. Pending vacuum of a black hole. It seems light and silly. Right, it's not horror. So it's been cool as an exercise to try to parse out the difference between those things. And again, it's a very thin line and it really doesn't truly matter at the scheme of things, but it's been a fun kind of thought exercise. Okay, alan, this is your final moment. What space horror films did we miss?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, as we talked about in the very beginning of the episode, it's like such a broad genre that there's so much stuff we haven't talked about. But the main thing that jumps to mind that we have not discussed is dead space, which there are some films, uh, but it started as a video game franchise and the premise of Dead Space is that humanity, far into the distant future, space travel, has become a thing where we're traveling to distant galaxies and in all this time humanity has never encountered another species. As far as humans know, they are the only ones in the universe, which is already kind of a unique concept it's kind of scary, even if you think of it that way but then, all of a sudden, they discover the marker, which is a giant crayola, a giant alien artifact.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh right, yeah, weird what do you mean, artifact?
Speaker 2:like a rune giant, giant, fucking monolith looking thing okay like a stone sculpture?
Speaker 1:why are alien artifacts always look like ruins from indiana jones?
Speaker 2:it doesn't at all actually. It's all twisty like, kind of like a horn, what is?
Speaker 1:the substance that it's made of, tower, I don't know, I didn't test all. Actually it's all twisty like kind of like a horn.
Speaker 2:What is the substance that it's made of Tower? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I didn't test it, but what does it look like?
Speaker 2:It looks like a giant spirally tower of horn.
Speaker 1:Like ivory.
Speaker 2:Black with, like, red stripes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then this thing, once it was touched by organic material, activates, and then everything that is dead reanimates, but in a way that it's like that's how it reproduces, through necrotic material. So this species exists by reproducing through other species dying. That's pretty rock and roll so these, these things are called necromorphs. All they want to do is kill other things, because that's how they reproduce.
Speaker 2:It's pretty fucked up yeah like it completely wipes out a space station. All the people, all the inhabitants become these like weird warp necromorph things. One of the most terrifying things are the babies, because all of a sudden you have these like weird baby looking murderous things and it's an entire franchise so full of lore and it's so horrific. Also, they're mostly immortal because you know they're dead. The only way to actually kill them is to completely dismember them so they can't move anymore.
Speaker 1:Fascinating. I'm surprised you haven't talked at length about hell divers on this series.
Speaker 2:What would that have to do with space horror?
Speaker 1:Isn't hell divers in space? Are we going to different planets?
Speaker 2:No, it has very much to do with space, but that's all about space democracy I think it's pretty scary. You're constantly under attack you are, but you're, you're trying to, you're spreading democracy to these cats.
Speaker 1:You know, so you're a colonizer socialist swines I understand.
Speaker 1:Anyway, on that note, that brings us to be the end of our history exploration of space horror. But the good news is that the ride is not over yet. We have two space horror story episodes because we got so many incredible submissions from writers. So we have two upcoming episodes featuring those really great stories for you guys and I'm really thrilled to be able to share them because, again, they're very impressive and scary and great, and we've got some awesome voice actors paired with those, so I'm super, super excited about that. In the meantime, I hope everybody's hanging in, doing okay. Stay safe, stay spooky and watch out for black holes. Bye.
Speaker 2:Bye.
