2.18 - ALIEN (1979) & The Thriller

Sam and Rob emerge from a terrifying, tense, body-horror blood-bath into something completely diff—oh. Still, it’s something a whole lot better than last week! We talk about gender politics, camerawork and musical changes, and why this isn’t really a science fiction film. Sort of.

This Week’s Watching
CRITICAL ROLE (2015—): Matthew Mercer, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey
SUITS (2011—): Doug Liman, Gabriel Macht, Patrick J. Adams

Recommendations
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974): Tobe Hooper, Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain
EVENT HORIZON (1997): Paul Anderson, Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill
ALONG CAME A SPIDER (2001): Lee Tamahori, Morgan Freeman, Monica Potter
FROM HELL (2001): the Hughes brothers, Johnny Depp, Heather Graham

Footnotes
Read more about Felicia Day — whose 'Geek & Sundry' network is behind Rob’s viewing choice this week — here. Sam mentions the conversation between Harry Dean Stanton and Ridley Scott about Ten Little Indians, which you can find here. The Alien wiki is good, and has quite a lot on the sexual imagery of the film that Rob mentioned towards the end of today’s episode. He talked briefly about Giger, too, whose concept art for the film is frankly terrifying. Finally, as a part of Sam’s mini discourse on the movie’s racial politics, he referred to his own article, which talks about ‘blaxploitation’ and racial stereotypes in the context of pop culture.