The impact of Ridley Scott’s 1979 film “Alien” in the worlds of horror and cinematography has surely been enormous, and, continues. Certainly the movie didn’t appear “out of nowhere”, and – consciously or otherwise, as in works of art of all genres – its creation is the result of numerous influences and cultural antecedents, both literary and cinematic. Among the influences that immediately came to my mind – at least, upon writing this post! – are the films “It! The Terror from Beyond Space” (1958), “Planet of the Vampires” (1965), and A.E. van Vogt’s 1939 Astounding Science Fiction short stories “Black Destroyer” and “Discord in Scarlet” both of which were incorporated into his 1950 fix-up novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle.
My supposition was confirmed through the (inevitably!) very lengthy entry for the film at Wikipedia, which discusses “Alien’s” origins in great detail. Specifically: “Alien‘s roots in earlier works of fiction have been analyzed and acknowledged extensively by critics. The film has been said to have much in common with B movies such as The Thing from Another World (1951). Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), Night of the Blood Beast (1958), and Queen of Blood (1966), as well as its fellow 1970s horror films Jaws (1975) and Halloween (1978). Literary connections have also been suggested: Philip French of the Guardian has perceived thematic parallels with Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (1939). Many critics have also suggested that the film derives in part from A. E. van Vogt‘s The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950), particularly its stories “The Black Destroyer”, in which a cat-like alien infiltrates the ship and hunts the crew, and “Discord in Scarlet”, in which an alien implants parasitic eggs inside crew members which then hatch and eat their way out. O’Bannon denies that this was a source of his inspiration for Alien‘s story. Van Vogt in fact initiated a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox over the similarities, but Fox settled out of court.
Several critics have suggested that the film was inspired by Italian filmmaker Mario Bava‘s cult classic Planet of the Vampires (1965), in both narrative details and visual design. Rick Sanchez of IGN has noted the “striking resemblance” between the two movies, especially in a celebrated sequence in which the crew discovers a ruin containing the skeletal remains of long-dead giant beings, and in the design and shots of the ship itself. Cinefantastique also noted the remarkable similarities between these scenes and other minor parallels. Robert Monell, on the DVD Maniacs website, observed that much of the conceptual design and some specific imagery in Alien “undoubtedly owes a great debt” to Bava’s film. Despite these similarities, O’Bannon and Scott both claimed in a 1979 interview that they had not seen Planet of the Vampires; decades later, O’Bannon would admit: “I stole the giant skeleton from the Planet of the Vampires.”
But…! Another “key” to the origin of “Alien” can be found at CultureNC’s YouTube channel (“Culture NC est une chaîne qui regroupe des vidéos sur la culture calédonienne” ((“Culture NC is a channel that brings together videos on New Caledonian culture”)) in the video “Alien: Pulp Origins“, of September 5, 2022. Therein, along with mention of “It! The Terror from Beyond Space” and “Planet of the Vampires”, CultureNC touches upon Howard Hawks’ 1951 “The Thing From Another World”, the two aforementioned A.E. van Vogt stories, the anthology Strange Relations by Philip José Farmer, and, the 1953 short story “Junkyard” by Clifford D. Simak. Ultimately, however, CultureNC arrives at an even earlier short story as having either prefigured “Alien”: Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis” from the May, 1932 issue of Weird Tales.
I find CultureNC’s discussion fascinating, While it’s unknown if Smith’s specific tale truly influenced the creators of “Alien” – that I doubt, given the tale’s time-frame and perhaps relative obscurity – what is remarkable (and correct) is that the story foreshadowed, if not anticipated, plot elements that emerged in the movie forty-seven years after its very Weird publication.
You can view Richard Corben’s adaptation of Smith’s story here. I’ve created PDF of the tale (by way of the Pulp Magazine Archive) which you can access (“yay! – free stuff!”), here.
For all its impact, and in spite of its obvious science-fiction tropes (space travel, cybernetics, suspended animation, and extraterrestrial life (of a gross and very deadly sort)), “Alien” unlike “Blade Runner” is emphatically not science fiction. It’s gothic horror; visual horror, which simply uses the idea (to be true, with marvelous effectiveness) – versus the reality – of “space” as a setting of emotional darkness, fear, and negative infinitude.
But yeah, it’s entertaining movie!
So, without further mouse clicking / scrolling delay, here’s Culture NC’s video:
There are two YouTube (audio) versions of “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis”. Here they be:
HorrorBabble’s YouTube channel features ““The Vaults of Yoh Vombis” / A Weird Tale of Mars by Clark Ashton Smith“, from March 22, 2021. The tale is narrated by Ian Gordon, with musci and production by Gordon, and, Jennifer Gill.
Shwan Pleil’s YouTube channel features “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis by Clark Ashton Smith“, narrated by Joe Knezevich, from March 15, 2023.
And otherwise…
Clark Ashton Smith, at…
… Internet Speculative Fiction Database
… The Eldritch Dark (“The Sanctum of Clark Ashton Smith”)
… Darkworlds Quarterly – The Culture of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror
… The Avocado (“A Primer on Clark Ashton Smith”)
… Social Ecologies (“Clark Ashton Smith: Visionary of the Dark Fantastic”)
… Comic Art Fans (one item)
… The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, at …
