Did cocoon scene storyboard for Alien
inspire Brainstorm's hell?

leading from

Ridleygram of cocoon scene from Fantastic Films, 1979
 
a) Cocoon scene Ridleygram
For an cut scene from Alien, involving the humans transforming into alien spores, Ridley provided Fantastic Films magazine with a storyboard that showed a Dallas in his slow transformation represented by a empty bubble with his hands and head appearing at the top. 
 
It might not have occurred to many that this was supposed to be the character engulfed in a ball of fire rather than the spore.. But here we seemed to have a human form crying out for help in a bubble surrounded by a wall of flesh.

Ridley Scott's storyboard for Ripley using the flame thrower on Dallas in the alien nest
 
 


scene from Brainstorm
 
c) Conveyor belt to Devil's Garbage disposal
A scene in this death tape unfolds where humans were stuck inside these bubbles within a landscape of flesh that was supposed to be a sort humans meshed together into a flowing form leading towards the Devil's Garbage disposal. The director wanted to have a whole landscape of flesh seen from afar but he had to settle for closeups and in the final movie only a short clip of what was intended was actually seen.

scene from Brainstorm
scene from Brainstorm





Alison Yerxa confers with one of her effects
"actors" prior to shooting live-action segments
for eventual rear-projection into the hell scapes.  (Cinefex 14: p43)




  1. Doug Trumbull: Even though everyone referred to it as 'hell', it really isn't, in any literal sense. It's a hellish image of pain and torture. We used a lot of animal guts in that scene, trying to get the feeling of vulnerability and physical pain and compression in one rapid-fire burst of images.(Cinefex 14:
  2. Doug Trumbull: I wanted something quite different where that is totally in another dimension - that it didn't adhere to any of the laws of physical science. It was going to be very organic, sort of decayed and desiccated, a horrible place with thousands of people all meshed in it, caught, trapped - all sort of flowing down towards a big Devil's Garbage Disposal, and dressed with actual entrails and cow intestines.(Cinefex 14: p43)

1 comment:

  1. I'm always disturbed by this scene whenever I see the movie.

    ReplyDelete