10 "Gory" Movie Moments (That Didn't Show As Much As You Think)

So, just to clarify, I’m not going to count the chest-burster scene, which is indeed very gory.

One would imagine that since the film’s first death is so gory, that there will be plenty more gore to follow once the xenomorph is on the loose. But this isn’t the case at all.

After escaping into the labyrinthine Nostromo, the xenomorph stalks the remaining crew members and kills four of them. It may surprise viewers that all of these kills are, unlike Hurt’s bloody and sustained demise, incredibly brief and gore-less. Dallas and Lambert’s even occur entirely offscreen.

The only other gory moment in the film is the decapitation of Ash at the hands of Ripley and Parker, but he turns out to be an android, spewing creamy gunk instead of blood.

Which leads us nicely into what makes Alien so nightmarish - its use of sexual imagery.

The phallic and vaginal designs of its creatures, the horrifying perversion of reproductive acts, and the pervasive undercurrent of sexual threat all linger in the psyche like a creature lurking in the shadows. Who needs gore?