At home...no one heard me scream.

So I went to down my local DVD store to pick up my Alien Quadrilogy box set yesterday. When I finally arrived and had the money in hand to give to the chick behind the counter, I became a little hesitant… cause it kinda did cost a lot.

I was thinking… “Man… I really ought to start saving for Batman: Arkhum Asylum” or even just saving in general cause I’m always blowing my money on all kinds of crap. Maybe I don’t really need this box set.

But then she brought that alien baby out and let me open it up.

And I was like:

“here’s my hard earned clams… see yaz”

This thing looked like a fucken alien when it was spread open. The 9 disc case unfolded acrross the counter and I saw the discs all green and shinny staring at me.

I had to have it.

So I paid up and ran out of the store like a little girl all excited. Sadly I couldn’t watch it right away because I was going out to dinner with my girl friendand her family for her mums birthday dinner.

That was a very nice too…

Afterwards I drove home like Racer X and spread that box set across my bed… grabbed the first disc (Alien) and fired up the DVD player.

And I was pleased.

We’ve all seen Alien and know how good it is… but this was the first time for me to see it remastered. Based on the quality it would be easy to convince someone who hasn’t seen the movie that it was made like 5 years ago instead of back in 1979. The set pieces and style almost make the movie timeless. And save for a few croma key issues here and there… the movie is visually amazing.

The scene with the little Alien ‘baby’ running across the mess hall table was not ac convincing as it might have been when the movie was first released… but the rest of it is every bit as nerve wrecking. I actually found my self tense and excited as I watched it.

The bit in the end threw me back to the first time I had seen it and was still a chiller. This is the bit when Ripley finds the Alien in the wall of her escape ship… camouflaged and blended in with the pipes and machinery.

After the movie I didn’t even know where to begin with the special features disc for it. Each Film has an accompanying disc that holds a treasure chest of featurettes and extras, that are broken into various categories such as ‘Pre-Production’, ‘Post- Production’ and so on. The sheer amount of Alien related videos and docos that are included are just mind fucking.

I’ve only just started watching the ‘special features’ disc for the first movie and already my mind has been pumped full of so much Alien details and tid bits, and I’ve only watched the ‘pre-production’ stuff.

One thing I found very interesting was how Ridley Scott had two different concept artists working seperatly from each other on the various aspects of the movie. One did the human aspect and the other the Alien. So when the two 'worlds' meet... you have something truly alien to each other.

All in all this is a nice something for not only fans of the Alien series, but sci-fi and more importantly sci-fi horror as a whole. The sci-fi horror genre is starved for good movies these days… but I’m glad I can go back to this baby when I need my fix.

I’m sure my GF will appreciate me giving my 28Days/Weeks later and Terminator DVDs a rest.

My next buy has to be Event Horizon… collectors :D