The first "Alien" film remains one of the few effective cinematic masterpieces of suspense and horror. Most filmmakers struggle to create the one thing this film has in spades (especially towards the end) and which is the most important factor of all in real horror - atmosphere. Sure today the FX look a little gawky at times, but the creature itself still holds up surprisingly well thanks to the way Scott never really filmed it in the open but rather kept it in shadow. Each character is separate and unique, no more so than Weaver in the first true female action heroinne which none have been able to match since (not even Linda Hamilton).

The opening 30 minutes or so are a bit slow but Scott is a very visual director so even though there are scenes where dialogue isn't spoken for minutes on end, the visuals are enough to keep things interesting - as is HR Giger's amazing designs. It's the last half though where it really shines, one sequence in particular in which Ripley is walking down steam filled corridors lit by strobe emergency lighting flashes with the auto destruct system warnings blaring in the background - this several minute long scene has almost no dialogue but is one of the most tense and effective suspense scenes EVER caught on film. They truly don't make movies like these anymore and while "Gladiator" may have had more financial success or "Blade Runner" more critical kudos, THIS is without a doubt Ridley Scott's best work hands down.

This new director's cut is an interesting twist on the original. Scott's film flows with better pacing and there's quite a few more changes than expected - the walk out to the spaceship on LV-426 feels more natural and ominous, the landing on the planet seems far less painfully long, and one or two of the attacks have a little more visceral punch to 'em. The print is nice and beautifully clear as if it were shot yesterday and unlike "Star Wars" for example, this doesn't betray its 70's origins anywhere near as much whilst the deletions/additions really are almost unnoticable bar the big 'coccoon' sequence which is fine but really unneeded in the end. Ultimately short of cleaning it up, the changes are really so minimal (unlike Scott's "Blade Runner: Director's Cut" for example) that it wasn't really needed.