10 Great Horror Movies With An Incredibly Simple Premise
2. Alien
Ridley Scott's seminal 1979 thrill-ride is a much simpler story than one might first expect. The crew aboard the Nostromo make the fatal error of deciding to investigate a crashed alien ship they received a signal from. Needless to say, things quickly go horribly wrong when John Hurt gets impregnated.
From there, the film follows an almost-slasher-like format as the dreaded xenomorph gradually picks off the crew. Bar a surprise twist with Ian Holm's not-so-human interior, the film is a relatively straightforward, space-set monster movie. The lurking creature in the shadows gives the spaceship setting a haunted house vibe as we realise the characters are being watched by something they can't quite comprehend.
In Ripley, the film also finds one of cinema's most iconic embodiments of the final girl trope. Ultimately the sole survivor, Ripley uses her wits and resourcefulness to best the hideous extraterrestrial beast and blast it into space. It makes for an action-packed climax to a slow-burning thriller that absolutely wowed audiences upon its release.
James Cameron's beloved sequel also employed a relatively simple premise: what if there was more than one xenomorph?