The Sunday Scene: Alien Resurrection

Not one of my favourite films by any stretch, but as I have been watching a lot of Aliens recently in the run up to Prometheus (seeing it on Wednesday!), and having already done Alien and Aliens scenes, I thought that this seemed appropriate. There are not many great or memorable scenes in Resurrection, but the one that both is visually stunning and makes me shudder is the underwater sequence.

I'm perhaps marginally claustrophobic and I'm certainly not a good swimmer, so the thought of having to dive underwater and not be able to rise easily to the surface really creeps me out; the underwater sequence here then is proper terrifying! Having said that, it looks really beautiful; the light used is very diffuse and gives the sequence a very alien luminescence. This was simply achieved by pouring milk into the water to soften the light, but the result looks really good.

The whole cast spent four weeks shooting this scene and had to rely absolutely on the surrounding crew to give them oxygen in between takes; as, just like the scene, the set was closed and so they couldn't just rise to the surface to get air. This is also true for the poor guy who had to be underwater dressed in an Alien suit!

The final horrible piece of the scene is when an alien grabs Hillard by the foot and drags her away. Terribly simple, but it makes me shudder every time! I'm not a fan of this film in any way really, but this scene is quite impressive in both how it was made and the end product; beautiful yet terrifying.