Alien autopsy

A new documentary finds plenty of new things to say about the Dan O’Bannon/Ridley Scott classic, from exploring its visual inspirations in fine art to bringing a feminist perspective to bear on the film

Memory: The Origins of Alien

Dir Alexandre O Philippe, US 2019 On UK release from 30 Aug, DVD & VOD from 2 Sept

Ridley Scott’s Alien is many things: a superlative sci-fi horror film; a designer’s dream; a synthesis of what came before it and a template for a lot of what came after it. But can it withstand deep scrutiny of its cultural origins, its original ideas, and its subtexts? This new documentary subjects the film to just such a rigorous examination and I’m happy to say Alien holds up remarkably well.

One of the reasons why the film was, and remains, so massively popular is because it tapped into myths and imagery that have fascinated and haunted mankind for thousands of years. This documentary makes a fine job of detailing these and making it clear just how deep the well is that the likes of writer Dan O’Bannon, director Scott, and artist HR Giger drew from. Taking imagery alone, the film cites Egyptian, Hindu, Mesopotamian and mediaeval English mythologies, as well depictions of Renaissance demons and the work of Hieronymous Bosch. Most remarkable of all perhaps is Francis Bacon, whose paintings – particularly Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion – bear a striking resemblance to some of Alien’s most iconic images.

As well as art history this documentary isn’t afraid to delve into religion, philosophy, psychoanalytic film theory and, perhaps most notably, feminism. One critic makes the point that Ash, the android, has been created, programmed, and educated so that he not only resembles a human being but can also pass as a human being. This makes his subsequent assault on Ripley, and his attempt to orally penetrate her with a rolled up magazine, especially troubling.

Having said all that, Memory is not at all a dry film. Thanks to plenty of details about the script’s genesis and the film’s production you never get the impression that the documentary is an arid intellectual exercise. Gratifyingly, it places Dan O’Bannon front and centre in terms of the film’s existence, which is not always the case with Alien documentaries. There are also new interviews with many of the behind-thecamera personnel as well as cast members Tom Skerritt and Veronica Cartwright.

I’ve seen Alien a good few times over the years but this film sheds new light on some of the ideas within it. It’s an absolute must, not just for Alien fans but for anyone interested in how art is created.

Daniel King

★★★★★

Leprechaun Returns

Steven Kostanski, US 2018 Lionsgate, £7.99 (DVD)

This double DVD set gives us not just the recent Leprechaun Returns, directed by Steven Kostanski, but throws in an extra disc containing the original Leprechaun movie created, produced and directed by Mark Jones back in 1993.

In the first film, Daniel O’Grady (Shay Duffin) steals the leprechaun’s gold in Ireland and takes it back to the USA. The leprechaun follows Daniel to get his gold back, but he is imprisoned for 10 years before he is inadvertently released by Jennifer Aniston, and goes on another murderous rampage to get his gold back. Eventually, he is trapped inside a well.

Leprechaun Returns takes us back to the well where the leprechaun was banished 25 years previously. Ignoring the numerous intervening Leprechaun sequels, it also attempts to correct some of their errors. Nonetheless, due to a dispute over his salary, Mark Jones dropped out of this project. Warwick Davis, who played the part of the leprechaun in all but one of the previous films, also sat out this one because he wanted to take a break from horror films, and is replaced by Linden Porco. The production was also unable to get Jennifer Aniston to reprise her role as Tory Redding, and instead Heather McDonald imitates her voice when the leprechaunun promises he can bring her back to life.

This time Lila (Taylor Spreitler), Tory’s daughter, goes back to her mum’s old home which she plans to fix up and turn into eco-friendly habitat with a group of her fellow female students during their summer vacation.

Things don’t go well (pardon the pun) from the beginning,

It tapped into myths that have haunted mankind for millennia

when Lila has to take a taxi to the house and the driver Ozzie Jones (Mark Holton, who appeared in the original film), talks darkly about knowing her mother. For good measure, the inside of his pick-up truck is plastered with pictures of four-leaf clovers, indicating he still needs some form of protection against the leprechaun. At the house, Lila finds the students busily engaged in repairing the cursed well; unknowingly, of course, they have given the leprechaun a way of (literally) erupting back into life: a geyser of green goo falls upon the hapless taxi driver and, in a scene reminiscent of the chestburster sequence in Alien, the fully formed leprechaun climbs out of the man’s body. Everything is now set-up for him to track down the pot of gold that was stolen from him in the original film and kill off the students at this remote location, dispatching them one by one using a multitude of gory and inventive methods.

The leprechaun embodies the unbridled forces of the id, and his lust for gold above all else is symbolic of capitalist greed. Leprechaun Returns is obviously a cabin-in-the-woods/teen-slasher movie, and on that level it is well executed. It’s a bit sad that the stereotypical iconography of the leprechaun is used to produce a monstrous creature who enjoys inflicting gruesome deaths on anyone who disrespects him or gets between him and his gold. Traditionally, Irish leprechauns are certainly grumpy but they were never this hostile towards humanity. The franchise simply hijacks a well-known folkloric figure for its own purposes and endows it with all types of supernatural abilities, including shape-shifting, flying, telekinesis and being virtually indestructible.

Both films are wonderfully inventive, campy gore-fests, it’s just the luck of the Irish that one of their best known mythical characters is transformed into a wise-cracking, remorseless green monster who is the pure embodiment of evil.

The Leprechaun Returns DVD also contains a behind-the-scenes feature, a stills gallery and an interview with director Steven Kostanki.

Nigel Watson

★★★★★