preview

Psychological Analysis Of The Movie Alien

Satisfactory Essays

Ridley Scott’s magnum opus, Alien, presents a particularly captivating struggle between a collection of space miners aboard the Nostromo and a frightening biomechanical mixture of phallic and vaginal imagery referred to as a xenomorph. This conflict between the crew and the alien creates the excellent fusion of science fiction and horror that made this movie such a success. Unlike the average horror movie, the fear that this film instills in the viewer does not rely solely on jump scares and a combination of practical effects and CGI (although these elements of the film definitely leave a lasting impression). Instead, the dread for the obsolescence and replacement of humanity, one of the most significant underlying themes of the film, functions as the foundation for most of the film’s horror. Ridley Scott employs “the uncanny,” a psychological concept of fear analyzed by Sigmund Freud, as the primary vehicle to subtly convey this theme. As a result, Scott traps humanity within the cross hairs of stronger forces, from automation to corporations to nature itself, all of which threaten to destroy humanity (represented by the crew). Therefore, Ridley Scott cleverly manipulates the (un)familiar within the film in order to attack the audience’s concept of humanity as the movie systematically destroys the human perception of birth and sex – which are critical parts of the evolution and progress of mankind, in order to finally portray mankind as weak and not long for this new and

Get Access