‘Always provided a release': why Aliens is my feelgood movie

The Guardian

3 days ago

Amid a recent IVF crisis, I turned to my husband in A&E and said, 'We should put on a cosy movie when we get home, like Aliens.' Immediately my mind flashed to the film's iconic image of gooey eggs exploding under vigorous gunfire. It seemed faintly ridiculous that Aliens was the chill-out film for this particular moment, but we watched it and, as ever, it hit the spot.
I've viewed Aliens at least once a year for the last decade. It is both an excellent and terrible movie. Helmed by James Cameron in place of the original Alien director Ridley Scott, this pumped-up-on-steroids 1986 sequel retains the grisly design of its predecessor. Its walls and ceilings are covered in wet gloop and fleshy tendrils, like the insides of a giant body. Its monsters bring to life the trailblazing designs of the Swiss 'fantastic realist' artist HR Giger. Almost four decades after its release, the film's world building remains chillingly authentic, as a group of marines – plus a villainous corporate executive, heroic android, feisty lone-survivor child and Sigourney Weaver's gun-toting yet wholesome protagonist Ellen Ripley – discover then attempt to escape a nest of parasitic aliens, their nightmarishly outsized mother and her lethal henchmen.
The film's high stakes are rarely far from the action while it hits just the right balance between absurd terror and genuine emotion. Like many of Cameron's movies, it simultaneously sends up and fetishizes military power, though ultimately the characters that survive are head-smart first and trigger-happy second. Its cheesy humour stops the violence from descending into cold detachment. The blusterous self-assurance of Bill Paxton's Pte Hudson is repeatedly undermined by douchebag lines like 'We just got our asses kicked, pal!' I've watched it so many times, I can picture his exact look of wide-eyed incredulity. Al Matthews' cigar-loving Sgt Apone satirises the macho marine trope, admonishing his unit with 'All right sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed?'
Aliens is a fast-paced, jump-scare-ridden scramble to violent demise or unlikely escape. Once it's been rewatched to death, there is a calm relief to its desperate fight for survival. I know who will live and who will perish; that the invasive titular form will ultimately not endure. In place of leaping out of my skin and hiding behind a cushion, viewing this movie now brings something else: the chance to process my own physical and emotional angst. When done well, the horror sci-fi genre functions on multiple levels, creating thrilling entertainment while also inviting its audience to digest real life experiences that are too painful or immediate to look at directly.
The culturally deep-rooted terror of women's bodies and their functions is a central aspect of the movie. The young facehugger aliens attach to their victims' mouths to plant an embryo inside, which then grows in their hosts' bodies before bursting out the chest. There are undeniable parallels with the oft-unspoken horrors of pregnancy and childbirth, as well as the unsettlingly sci-fi retrievals and implantations of IVF. The movie revels in a certain revulsion at hyper-fertility and the act of birth, but it also captures the natural fears and frustrations of existing in a body that can grow and explosively eject a living being in a manner that is richly cathartic.
As a psychotherapist currently in the middle of Kleinian training, I am drawn to embracing the dark side of the body. The British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein addressed the feelings of violence, rage and disgust that can be a normal part of the embodied psyche. I can't help but see her ideas woven through Aliens, as Ripley relentlessly tears through a grotesque symbol of extreme motherhood. A romcom may distract me temporarily from the bodily dread of IVF needles, speculums and dearly longed for new life, but the visceral sight of exploding eggs and torsos hits something deeper and more real.
Aliens, with its invasive, parasitic monsters, finds parallels with other psychological and bodily battles that are often repressed. Over the years, this film has always provided a release, whether working through rage, sexual trauma or long Covid. It strikes the perfect tonal balance that enables momentary relief without further traumatising. After Ripley settles Newt, Hicks and Bishop into their cryo-sleep, her final long rest is well-earned and beautifully peaceful. I, too, always sleep well after watching it, my nightmare-prone mind settled knowing the on-screen and internal big beasts have momentarily been vanquished. I just have to pretend Alien 3 was never made.
Aliens is available on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK and Australia