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Alien³ (David Fincher, 1992)

Famously wracked with production troubles, Alien3 still manages to astound with a deliberate return to both the gothic trappings of the original film, and an alien creature that is clearly more than just an expendable bug.

Unrepentantly bleak and downbeat from tragic beginning right the way through to the final shot, the film bravely attempts to undo the 'shoot-em-up' tag James Cameron's second film had left the series with, and was critically punished for doing so. Nonetheless it is still a beautiful, graceful film with a black cynical heart beating underneath - a combination that even the most meddling studio couldn't extinguish.

The 2005 Assembly Cut reinstates a further half an hour of black blasted misery, hysteria and murder, returning the film to something vaguely akin to its original form, and is even more starkly compelling than the original.
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