In June 1979, a local Texas news report captured a curious phenomenon: parents bringing their children to see Alien, Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece that would go on to become one of the most influential films of its genre.
The above segment, filmed at the Ridgely Theater in Fort Worth, noted the movie’s box office success, surpassing titles like The Godfather, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Superman in ticket sales at the venue. But the real story wasn’t just the record-setting numbers—it was the sight of young children shuffling into a movie that was advertised with the chilling tagline: “In space, no one can hear you scream.”
To watch the news report and see the interviews, press the top left play button on the above feature image.
The reporter, veteran Texas broadcaster Bobby Wygant, interviewed parents who openly admitted they knew the movie was rated R before bringing their kids. One mother conceded she regretted the decision, while another father defended it, suggesting that his son needed to see it because “things like that could happen in life” and might even be “a true story based on science.”
The children’s reactions were telling. One boy admitted the movie scared him and said he wouldn’t recommend it to friends his age. His father, meanwhile, shrugged it off, saying the family regularly watched horror films together: “We like horror movies. We’re horrible, I guess.”
At four dollars a ticket, perhaps, as Wygant dryly observed, families simply felt too invested to walk out. Or maybe, as psychologists were already warning then, audiences were becoming increasingly desensitized to cinematic violence. The old news clip was posted on YouTube by Vampire Robot.
Still, the fact that Alien drew families alongside diehard sci-fi fans is a reminder of just how powerful cinema was as a communal experience in the late 1970s.
What no one standing outside the theater in 1979 could have imagined was how Alien would evolve far beyond its debut. The film wasn’t just a hit—it became the cornerstone of one of cinema’s most enduring franchises.
James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) turned the slow-burn horror of the first film into a high-octane action spectacle, cementing Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley as one of the greatest protagonists in science fiction. Alien 3 (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997) carried the story further, with darker, riskier creative choices that divided audiences but kept the xenomorph alive on screen.
The monster eventually collided with another pop culture icon in Alien vs. Predator (2004) and its sequel, a pairing that once lived only in comic books and video games. Ridley Scott himself returned decades later with prequels like Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), exploring the origins of the creatures and raising existential questions about creation, technology, and humanity’s place in the universe. Alien: Romulus just came out in 2024 as the latest chapter, as far as movies are concerned.
A live-action television series, Alien: Earth, has also just begun to be streamed.