To the question “Are we alone in the universe?” science fiction offers up a resounding “no.” The genre has served up innumerable inhabitants of countless worlds, everything from colossal beasts to dangerous microbes.
With so many to choose from, selecting eight was no easy task. I tried for a mix of different kinds of aliens, from the nearly human to the not-at-all. I also tried to choose creatures from movies that were worth watching (though in a couple of cases I had to bend that criterion at least a little).
And still the set suffers from weak spots. For example, some of the best aliens are the ones who come in peace to teach us something valuable about the universe and about ourselves. However, most of the visitors on this list are the other kind, the sort that seeks to subdue, study or just plain old eat us.
A quick note on the politics of the list: I’d made my choices and written most of the descriptions when I noticed that seven of the eight aliens were uninvited guests on Earth. This naturally raises questions about the parallels between movie xenophobia and real questions about undocumented immigrants, the folks who used to be called “illegal aliens.”
Space creatures have – for good or ill – occasionally stood in for marginalized members of society. They’ve also played other allegorical roles; for example, in the 1950s they frequently served as the Red Menace. More often, however, they’re intended to be exactly what they are: something more powerful than us with which we must contend or at least interact.
In any event, the closest any of the aliens on this list come to anything politically incorrect would be the immigrant street crime elements of Predator 2 (which didn’t actually make the list, though it has a class of creature in common with one of the following eight).
Aliens – It isn’t every species that can presume to go by the generic “Aliens.” But these bugs pull it off nicely. It helps that an artist – and a weird one at that – designed them. Plus they’re four aliens in one: the face hugger, the chest burster, the drone and the queen. After the second movie the series loses me a bit, but even in the bad ones the aliens still kick butt (indeed, the swimming alien was the highlight of number four).
Predator – If we’re going to include Aliens, then we’re also going to have to toss in their buddies the Predators. While most of Earth’s guests from outer space either come in peace or want to take over, all these guys want to do is get a little hunting in. I’ve seen these movies dozens of times (except for number three, for which I didn’t particularly care), and I still can’t quite decide if Stan Winston’s design of the creatures’ faces – the ultimate vagina dentata – is a “oh, cool!” or “ew, nasty!” moment. Still, I do love their M.O.
The Mutant from Metaluna – Most of the aliens in This Island Earth look just like we do (except they have bigger foreheads). But even though they show up claiming to need our help to save their planet, they turn out to have a scary-looking henchman. This “mutant” is the archetypal Bug-Eyed Monster with its huge, brain-looking head, fearsome claws and shiny space suit.
Martians – Of our three closest constant neighbors in the solar system, Mars seems to be the most constant source of alien invaders. At one point we figured we’d find people on the Moon when we got there, but they seldom seemed to have much interest in making a call on us. And of course Venus filled the heads of unimaginative screenwriters with visions of Zsa Zsa Gabor in an outlandish outfit that no inhabitant of a man-free world would ever put on. But Mars, ah, there be monsters. And they’re none too shy about engaging in a little interplanetary imperialism, either. Of all the denizens of the Red Planet, my favorite are the obnoxious little creeps from Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks. They indulge in just about every evil alien cliché in the book.
The Blob – One of the most unfortunate tendencies of timid filmmakers is the inclination to anthropomorphize visitors from outer space. In a universe of nearly limitless possibility, I find myself consistently disappointed when the aliens turn out to be guys with rubber appliances glued to their foreheads. Thus anyone with the guts to break out of this mold commands at least a little respect. I concede that this movie suffers in the execution, turning into a story that seldom rises above Rebel Without a Cause versus A Giant Wad of Red Jell-o. Nonetheless, it musters a good-sized dose of creepiness solely from the extra-alien nature of the alien menace.
The body snatchers – On the other hand, alien invaders can also maximize their scariness by looking exactly like us. Indeed, the main awfulness of the body snatching menace is that they want to take our places and become us (or at least a weird simulation of us). Though this theme has been explored with varying degrees of success (and in the name of different psychological and political agendas) over the years, it always inspires a shudder or two.
It – Now consider the opposite thesis. The aliens in It Came from Outer Space look nothing like us, and as nonhumans they’re inherently to be feared. But then it turns out that the few humans who are willing to overcome their instincts and extend a little trust turn out to be correct about the nature of the visitors. Because all the other aliens on this list are out to do us harm, I wanted to include at least one intelligent example of the other possibility.
The Thing – This one is every imaginable form of alien menace rolled into one. It can be a ravening monster or look exactly like us. It can infect us from within before we even know what’s happening (not unlike The Andromeda Strain, a different kind of alien that nearly made this list). It’s a BEM, a body snatcher and an advanced case of AIDS. And it doesn’t exactly hurt that the movie going on around it is pretty good as well.
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