The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, June 21, 1979, Page Page 3, Image 3
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Entertainmant Editor
Because of several toppled box-office
records, every magazine from Variety to
Newsweek is predicting Alien to be the
summer's biggest hit. Strangely enough,
each prognosticator has neglected to consider
the possibility that Alien might be
making money simply because it was the
ill bi uiajui auiiiiuci 1 mil iu auivc ai uic
nation's theatres.
If a distributor puts a film into an empty
marketplace, it's naturally going to make
money until the marketplace fills up. With
that fact in mind, my guess is when the
summer's other major films (Moonraker,
The Main Event, Lost and Found) open,
Alien's box-office strength will collapse
completely.
My remarks about Alien are disparaging
because even though the film supplies more
thrills than any recent movie in memory,
the thrills are not elicited in the spirit of fun.
In fact, Ridley Scott has directed the film in
a manner so oblivious to the viewers'
feelings that Alien often seems downright
sinister.
As the film begins, we find ourselves on
board an Earth-bound space-tanker called
thp Mftntrnmn Whilp thp shin's numerous
computers chatter away, the camera takes
us on a grand tour through the ship's inner
recesses. Many of the Nostromo's narrow
corridors are gleaming and white, but most
are blackened and grubby with use, giving
the ship the appearance of a space-age
haunted house.
The camera eventually brings us to a
shiny, dome-shaped room where the ship's
seven-member crew has been awakened
from suspended animation by a computer
which has picked up an unidentified distress
signal emanating from a nearby planet.
The eantain. Kane (John Hurt), orders the
ship down to investigate. He and two other
crew members, Dallas and Lambert (Tom
Skerritt and Veronica Cartwright), then
brave the planet's icy weather until they
come upon a downed spaceship. After going
inside, they discover the remains of what
was probably once the pilot and then they
stumble upon a giant room filled with giant
eggs.
As Kane is inspecting one of the eggs, a
slimy, squid-like creature bursts forth
shattering Kane's helmet and attaching
itself to Kane's face, sending him into a
coma. Dallas and Lambert drag Kane back
to the Nostromo and, against the wishes ol
the second mate, Ripley (Sigourne>
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of stomach
Weaver), bring Kane and the baby alien on
board.
Before anyone realizes it, the creature has
disengaged itself from Kane and disappeared.
When next the crew sees it, it's
obvious that the little fellow isn't nearly so
benign as the chorus line of Pillsbury doughboys
were in Steven Spielberg's Close
Encounters of the Third Kind.
Alas, the crew members in Alien almost
never use their brains to outwit the
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track down the creature with
radar, but after the scene ends, they don't
bother to use the radar again, even when the
creature is slaughtering people faster than
they can be counted.
As each remaining crew member's intelligence
grows into stupidity, it becomes
5? r. _ 11 _ A il 1 1. 4
painiuny apparent uiai uiey arc jusi straw
men being set up to be picked off (each in a
way more nauseating than the one before
him).
Honestly, anything Scott perceives as
potentially jolting (or revolting) to an
audience, he puts onscreen. Certainly, the
first three killings are chillingly effective,
but after that, the suspenseful half-film
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into nothing more than a mechanical scareshow,
wherein the beady-eyed alien pops out
every ten minutes or so just to ensure the
audience that he's still lurking somewhere
on the ship.
These shots of the alien have roughly the
same effect as that of a cattle prod. It's too
bad Scott didn't realize that two hours of
intermittent goosing is more than anyone
would want to endure ? especially if they
have to pay for the privilege.
Alien's ad campaign (the tag line of which
reads "In space no one can hear you
scream") may lure a great number of
people to the theatre and talk about the
scenes of disembowelment might lure in a
few others, but there's no chance that Alien
-- 111 ^ M/\MAn 4 ktintMAno fUnt
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often turns a borderline hit into a runaway
; smash.
Newsweek covers be darned.
AS FAR AS HORROR movies go, the
summer's biggest hit will probably b
i Prophecy, a delightfully scary movie thai
, John Frankenheimer has somehow
; managed to fashion from the ridiculous
i material in David Seltzer's excruciatingl>
; silly novel of the same name.
F The film takes Dlace in Maine's Manatee
r Forest, where environmental expert Rot
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Vern (Robert Foxworth) has been flown in
from Washington, wife Maggie (Talia
Shire) in tow, to settle a dispute between a
tribe of Indians and the local paper mill.
The Indian leaders, John and Ramona
Hawks (Armand Assante and Victoria
Racimo), and the mill's manager, Bethel
lseiy (Kicnara uysaru, are soon jocKeying
for a position in the Verns' good graces.
Isely supplies the couple with food and then
the Hawks supply them with stories horrible
enough to make them lose it, such as tales
about Indian babies being born so deformed
i they had to be put to death.
When a tuna-sized salmon splashes Rob
and a convulsing racoon attacks Maeeie.
the two begin to believe that something is
indeed wrong in the Manatee.
At Isely's insistence, Rob and Maggie
: visit the mill to check out his assertion that
; no chemicals are escaping from it. The visit
t culminates in Rob's discovery of the
r dreaded methyl-mercury in the mill's
i soaking ponds.
' Twenty minutes later, the Verns, the
Hawks. Iselv and a handful of others are
; stranded in the forest at the mercy of a
> rampaging mutant she-bear.
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run-of-the-mill potboiler to a Jaws-type
mixture of thrills and escapism, with the
mutant bear taking the place of Bruce the
shark.
Prophecy's script, however, never
manages to be as engaging as Jaws, but the
acting often makes up for what the script
lacks. Assante, Dysart and Racimo do
exceptionally well with their underwritten
roles and Foxworth, too, has some nice
moments.
The fly in the ointment is Shire, whose
simpering portrayal of Maggie Vern all but
torpedoes every scene in which she appears.
More than once I wanted to see her gobbled
up Dy tne monsier, or at tne very ieasi
ripped to shreds by a renegade racoon.
For all its faults, however, Prophecy is as
irresistible to a movie fan as sterno is to a
dried-out drunk. For those who want to be
scared without being sickened, Prophecy
fills the bill nicely.
Prophecy's Richard Dysart talks about
how fun it is to be eaten by a bear in an
exclusive interview in next week's
Gamecock.
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' 783-2119