I was going to write something on the Alien saga, but everyone knows that those films – at least the first three – are among the greatest films ever made. Alien and Aliens are straight-out five-star films: completely flawless masterpieces of terror and suspense. What I didn’t know about Alien 3 was that David Twohy was involved in the early stages and when he didn’t end up directing the film, simply took his script idea and made it as the absolutely superb Pitch Black (hence its feel of being “the missing Alien movie”).
I think David Fincher did an incredible job of making Alien 3, considering it was his first film, and that it was such a butchery of so many ideas and forceful personalities. The theatrical cut is an entertaining three-star film and the Director’s Cut is a strong four-star contender: not quite as good as Alien or Aliens but in its own right a fabulous film. You know it’s a great film when everyone copies it, and that image of someone running in the dark holding a torch aloft is something that ended up in Pitch Black, and in many other films including Dog Soldiers.
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I love Dog Soldiers. I think it’s a cracking film, and massively underrated. It’s by Neil Marshall, who directed The Descent and Doomsday, and I wonder if he’s going to be a big-name director in the future based on the quality of his low-budget movies to date.
