12 Most Paused Horror Movie Moments
5. Alien – Chestburster Scene
The moment when the baby Xenomorph (or chestburster as it’s generally referred to in Alien lore) erupts forth from the chest of Nostromo’s executive officer Kane (the late, great John Hurt) is not only one of Alien’s most memorable scenes, it’s also one of the most gorily unforgettable scenes in the horror genre and cinema as a whole.
It’s a pivotal scene in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi masterpiece and marked the first time we got a proper look at the alien creatures that Ripley and Co are up against. Or at least in their infantile form which, it turned out, wasn’t a cuter version of their adult counterparts.
Apparently when the scene was filmed the cast, apart from Hurt, were largely in the dark about what was about to go down so when the chestburster sprang forth accompanied by a mix of prop guts made up of animal innards sourced from a local butchers their horror was very, very real.