Alien | The Sound of Terror

|Spoilers for Alien (1979)|

It’s been a few weeks since Alien: Romulus smashed the box office by making over $100 million dollars worldwide in its opening weekend. Everyone seems to be talking about what a splatter fest the Evil Dead (2013) director Fede Álveraz has cooked up, or how Alien fans yearn for the third instalment in Scott’s prequel films following Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017). I think it's as good of a time as any to go back to the film that started it all–Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) released 45 years ago this September.

The eerie sound design and immaculate set design are some of the many ways the film crafts a heart-palpitating, sweat-inducing atmosphere, one that always benefits from repeat viewings. I want to focus on the former, and why I think its simple yet effective sound design transports you to a lowly cargo hauler ship in the empty vacuum of space somewhere between Neptune and LV-426.

Normally when talking about Alien, the names that come up are Ridley Scott, Dan O Bannon and HR Giger. But Jim Shields is the real underdog of the film as its lead sound editor. Shields is the reason the Nostromo has its exhaling breathlike ventilation systems, its tactile clicks and clacks that blend 22nd century technology with traditional, realistic 20th century equipment. When the onboard computer searches for information it sounds like a rolodex mixed with digital, bright harmonics and shifting gears. There's the beeps and boops coming from Mother as she eerily replies in text “crew expendable” on the computer screen; the opening of doors that sound like a bank vault spindle turning while a sharp inhale from the air tight door frame shifts in and out of place. 

That's all because of Jim Shields.

The titular Alien itself, the Xenomorph, is one of if not the finest creature design ever put to film with all its Lovecraftian inspired, H.R. Giger glory wouldn't be half as iconic if it weren’t for its snake-like hissings, animal growls and screechings that accompany the different evolutions of the creature. Percy Edwards, famed animal impressionist, is uncredited for some of the facehugger and fully grown alien noises, but other sources point towards it being animal recordings merged together. And who can talk about 1970s sci-fi sound design without mentioning Ben Burtt, who made a plethora of iconic sounds in George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977). What many might not know is that Burtt is responsible for a sound in one of the most iconic scenes in the entire film- the Xenomorphs' acidic blood melting through the hull after the botched attempt to get the face hugger off of Kane. Burtt created this by pouring liquid nitrogen onto a flat surface and letting it fizzle away.

I'm in an odd relationship with the sound design of Alien. On one hand, I think it's one of the best atmospheric films ever created, and both Jim Shield’s sound design and Jerry Goldsmith’s score work in perfect tandem to make one of the scariest and dread-inducing films I’ve ever seen. On the other hand, I find myself obsessed with the digital bleeps and the various flicking, dialling, pressing and toggling of switches, the low hum of the ship's engine. I find it both eerie and relaxing at the same time. It’s a ladder clanking, gas hissing, water dripping, computer buzzing ASMR extravaganza that fully eases me into the Nostromo ship so casually and effortlessly, priming me for jumpscares just as the crew of the Nostromo starts to awake and slowly return to work after their three month long nap.

Brett’s death is just as masterful on a visual and directing level as it is with its sound. Harry Dean Stanton, slackly dressed and despite having a long hypersleep, looks like he could have used a couple months more, wanders into the ship’s cooling tower room in search for the Nostromo crew’s cat. It's essentially raining on Brett due to the condensation above and the area is poorly lit, keeping the periphery of Brett’s vision in shadow. Jonesy the cat lurking under the cover of darkness just like another animal in the room. As the chains rattle above like a scene from a hammer horror movie, Brett slowly walks into his demise with a faint heartbeat sound lightly thumping away. A diegetic sound that's been audible since the beginning of the scene. Whether it’s Bretts heartbeat itself, an unseen ventalation fan spinning at a steady pace or an inner piece of the Nostromo’s core that echoes throughout the hull, it makes for a brilliant piece of tense sound design that stops as soon as Brett’s head is pierced by the Alien’s inner jaw. 

Just like Ash, the crew’s android, the noises of the ship echo the sounds of humanity, whether it’s the faint heartbeat in the cooling tower room, or a parched breathing of an opening door. A subtle, even subconscious way of letting the audience know that Ash, the Nostromo, and by extension, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, don’t value the lives of the crew onboard.

Suspension of disbelief for sci-fi films can be difficult for many audience members, and many films love to exist on a plane  so detached from any down to earth reality that there’s no other choice than to join the film at its own level. What  Ridley Scott, Jim Shields, and the entire creative team do with Alien is ground its effects, set design, and soundscape within our reality. Sounds we recognise from an organic environment or from real world objects that make it easier for us to buy into a terrifying world that Ridley Scott’s Alien inhabits.

“In space no-one can hear you scream… without Jim Shields”

Written by Michael Tasker | IG: @thegoldenecstasy | LB: Haelcim