The making of Alien's chestburster scene

Cast and crew of the classic 1979 horror film recall the moment a monster emerged from John Hurt's stomach
The chestburster scene in Alien.
The infamous chestburster scene in Alien. Sigourney Weaver as Ripley looks on in horror. Photograph: Allstar/20TH CENTURY FOX/Sportsphoto Ltd.

Ron Shusett (executive producer/ screenwriter): Ridley didn't tell the cast. He said, "They're just going to see it."

  1. Alien
  2. Production year: 1979
  3. Countries: UK, USA
  4. Cert (UK): 18
  5. Runtime: 127 mins
  6. Directors: Ridley Scott
  7. Cast: Ian Holm, John Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt
  8. More on this film

Sigourney Weaver (Ripley): They were crafty. They pitched the story so that you feel John Hurt's character would be the only true hero among us.


Weaver: All it said in the script was, "This thing emerges."

Ridley Scott (director): The reactions were going to be the most difficult thing. If an actor is just acting terrified, you can't get the genuine look of raw, animal fear.

Cartwright: They take John down in the morning to prep him and we're upstairs for four hours. We're sitting upstairs and nobody knows what the hell is going on. Harry Dean [Stanton] is sitting in the hall playing his guitar.

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.

Cartwright: When they finally take us down, the whole set is in a big plastic bag and everybody is wearing raingear and there are huge buckets around. The formaldehyde smell automatically made you queasy. And John is lying there.

Weaver: Everyone was wearing raincoats - we should have been a little suspicious. And, oh God, the smell. It was just awful.

Shusett: He had four cameras running. Two guys, technicians, were under the table with a compressed blood machine. Nobody said a word, but Sigourney looked really scared. I said, "You're really getting into character." She said, "No, I have a feeling I'm going to be pretty repulsed right now."

Yaphet Kotto (Parker): We were all wondering what the hell was going on. Why is the crew looking at us the way they're looking at us right now? Why are they wearing plastic shields?


Weaver: All I could think of was John, frankly. I wasn't even thinking that we were making a movie.

Ivor Powell (associate producer): I hadn't expected it to be quite that intense.





Empire magazine

Shusett: From that moment on, they were really into it. It wasn't a game.

Taken from the current issue of Empire magazine, on sale now.

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