On Halloween night I was watching the original Halloween film — John Carpenter’s first masterpiece pioneered the slasher genre, provided us with an unforgettable score, and introduced the world to Jamie Lee Curtis. The flick is a classic of course even if it’s still controversial in some circles.

Given the season I’m assuming that interested readers might have already re-watched the film recently so I wanted to offer-up one last spooky surprise for October which also features a tough heroine who’s not afraid to kick ass. This is the first short film released by Oats Studios earlier this year. It’s directed by Neil Blomkamp and it stars Sigourney Weaver as — what else — an alien killer. Here’s the word on the first chapter of Rakka…

The Earth will be attacked by technologically far superior and highly aggressive reptilian aliens in the near future. Humanity is nearing extinction. Millions are dead or enslaved. The extraterrestrials transform the earth in favor of its living conditions. They burn down forests, destroy cities and build huge megastructures that are slowly terraforming the Earth, pumping out methane and making it harder and harder to breathe and flooding cities close to the oceans.

The story begins in 2020, from the point of view of a resistance based out of Texas – US Army and others who have banded together. The survivors live mostly in the underground or scattered among ruins, and have just enough provisions, weapons and ammunition to continue fighting, using whatever they can against the aliens’ technology – primarily some kind of nanite omnipresent in all their weaponry, as well as the aliens’ trump card, a “hack” of sorts that forces anyone who looks into their eyes under telepathic control.

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This year we celebrate three decades since Aliens was released in 1986. Aliens is one of those unlikely sequels that manages to re-imagine the elements of an original film, and find another way to tell a similarly timeless story. The original Alien is a haunted house movie in space — a horror film featuring an unforgettable monster. The second film includes the spooky, claustrophobic atmospherics, and the drooling monster from the original, but it places these into a sci-fi actioner headed by one of the strongest heroines in 20th century cinema. Here’s some of Roger Ebert‘s review from back in the day…

…”Aliens” is absolutely, painfully and unremittingly intense for at least its last hour. Weaver goes into battle to save her colleagues, herself and the little girl, and the aliens drop from the ceiling, pop up out of the floor and crawl out of the ventilation shafts. (In one of the movie’s less plausible moments, one alien even seems to know how to work the elevator buttons.) I have never seen a movie that maintains such a pitch of intensity for so long; it’s like being on some kind of hair-raising carnival ride that never stops.

I don’t know how else to describe this: The movie made me feel bad. It filled me with feelings of unease and disquiet and anxiety. I walked outside and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was drained. I’m not sure “Aliens” is what we mean by entertainment. Yet I have to be accurate about this movie: It is a superb example of filmmaking craft.

The director, James Cameron, has been assigned to make an intense and horrifying thriller, and he has delivered. Weaver, who is onscreen almost all the time, comes through with a very strong, sympathetic performance: She’s the thread that holds everything together.

The supporting players are sharply drawn. The special effects are professional. I’m giving the movie a high rating for its skill and professionalism and because it does the job it says it will do. I am also advising you not to eat before you go to see it.

Gory, scary and a great follow-up to a great film, Aliens is a perfect movie to highlight during this month of horrors. The 30th anniversary is just sort of the slime on top here, like the tiny gnashing jaws that come out of the monster’s bigger, gnashing jaws, at least through this second film the Alien franchise was one that kept on giving.

Here’s the Making of Aliens…

Stay Awake!

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