Alien encounters of a familiar but still perfectly enjoyable kind

My parents were usually fairly conservative types when it came to monitoring my TV viewing as a youngster. As a parent I now appreciate why Robocop wasn't suitable for their nine-year-old son, no matter how much I nagged them about renting it from our local video store.

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So when my dad announced one morning in the mid-Eighties to his Star Wars-obsessed son that he'd taped this science-fiction film called Alien off the telly that he thought I'd like, I was rather excited. He'd not watched it either because it was on quite late (you might think this was a red flag...).

A couple of hours later I was somewhat traumatised.

From the face-huggers to the chest-buster and the resulting xenomorph (as they have since become known) which relentlessly stalks the crew, killing them one by one, it is a masterclass in tension and terror and a recognised classic.

The titular alien was designed by the renowned fantasy artist HR Giger, and was pure nightmare fuel - a virtually unstoppable killing machine with acid for blood. And it freaked me the hell out.

As the movie's poster memorably said: "In space no one can hear you scream." Since then we've had another bona fide classic for a sequel - Aliens, and then, let's be fair, varying degrees of diminishing returns.

The first four films traced the story of Ripley - (spoiler, but it is 46 years old!) Alien's sole survivor.

We also had a brace of Alien Vs Predator films in the Noughties, which while a fun idea in comic books, were not great cinema.