Ridley Scott pauses his iconic in-camera chestburster scene in several places to show the tricks he used to make it so memorable.
When John Hurt died earlier this year, The Independent got key cast and crew impressions of that remarkable shoot day:
Scott: Prosthetics in those days weren’t that good. I figured the best thing to do was to get stuff from a butcher’s shop and a fishmonger. On the morning we had them examining the Facehugger; that was clams, oysters, seafood. You had to be ready to shoot because it started to smell pretty quickly. You can’t make better stuff than that – it’s organic.
Dan O’Bannon (executive producer/screenwriter): Once the creature was rigged up, they stuffed the chest cavity full of organs from the butcher’s. Then they ran a couple of big hoses to pump the stage blood. During all this Ridley moved about, tending to the finest detail. I remember easily half an hour was spent with him draping this little piece of beef organ so it would hang out of the creature’s mouth.
Scott: We had an artificial chest screwed to the table. John was underneath: it was an illusion his neck was attached to the body.
• Ridley Scott explains the original Alien chestbuster scene – Director commentary (YouTube / GamesRadar)