The original 1979 Alien is really a very simple thing: a haunted-house movie that substitutes a rusty old spaceship for a creaky old mansion and a rubbery extraterrestrial critter for a ghost. The elements that made it both a massive hit and an enduring object of academic study—from its anti-corporatist anxiety to its vagina-dentata art direction to its distaff-warrior protagonist—were surface maneuvers that neither interfered nor intersected with the underlying machinery.
— Adam Nayman (Reverse Shot)
Synopsis: During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.