BAIT AND SWITCH

When I was re-watching Ridley Scott's "Alien" recently, I was most impressed to see again what I think of as the almost classic "Bait and Switch" moment being flawlessly executed.

I have no idea, of course, if it is known as a "Bait and Switch" you understand? Such a trope might have a completely different term made up for it in "Film Criticism" circles, but that's the term that flashed into my mind when I saw it again. and it's kind of stuck.

Come to think of it, it might not even be a "trope" as such, but my days of metatextual analysis are so far behind me now, that I no longer really care.

The point is that, having had one of the characters come to a rather gruesome end by being sent off alone to try and find "Jones" the ship's cat, the story carefully sets up a similar scenario just a few minutes late by arranging for two of the characters to go off and get some vital coolant for the escape shuttle whilst the third is left alone to prepare to try and destroy the ship as a means to ridding themselves of the lethal alien which they become trapped aboard with and who is picking them off one by one.

That the vital coolant turns out to be less vital afterwards is rather irrelevant. The point is that we are into classic "vulnerable female left alone" territory and we are drawn into the expectation of another deadly assault, emphasised even more by her suddenly remembering the cat and deciding to move around the cramped confines of a particularly dark corner of the ship trying to find it.

Already, as we have seen, this has been a huge mistake for one of her former colleagues, and by this time we are internally screaming "No, don't do it" as she looks in every dark corner, one of which, as we know, is bound to contain the terrifying interloper.

This particular character has already performed a similar role in the scene much earlier in the film when, after impregnating another of her late colleagues, the "face-hugger" version of the creature has detached himself from his face and disappeared off into a corner somewhere, and the crew of the "Nostromo" have to search the various nooks and crannies of the sickbay to try and find it, so we are already familiar with how this is going to go.

But then, instead of the usual "person left all alone and meeting a ghastly fate" moment, the "bait and switch" comes in and it is both of her colleagues who become the target of the latest attack and, instead of watching a lone woman become a victim, she is immediately transformed into a survivor and the rest of our classic action movie scenario can finally occur, having finally revealed just who its protagonist is going to be...

Classic stuff.