Like so many of the great terror classics before it, Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi chiller Alien has become a museum piece.

It's mesmerizing to watch it unfold because it is so well crafted but it is no longer terrifying.

This is an observation, not a criticism.

It's difficult to believe people fainted during the 1925 screenings of Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera or that people fled screaming from screenings of Psycho in 1960 and Jaws in 1975.

It's well documented that The Exorcist made some people physically ill and gave others nightmares.

The fact these films and Alien seem tame today does nothing to diminish their brilliance or draw into question the genius that went into creating them.

They were each so good they spawned legions of imitators as well as sequels of their own.

Those subsequent films, familiarity, the availability of DVD and video and time itself have chipped away at the unbearable suspense and shocks they once possessed.

In the case of Alien, knowing that the creature puts its spawn into John Hurt and precisely when it will emerge diminishes the effect of one cinema's finest jump-from-your-seat moments.

Even the creature itself seems less frightening because special effects have made subsequent space invaders more realistic.

It's still an enjoyable experience revisiting the Nostromo and getting reacquainted with its seven crew members.

What made Alien work so well was that Scott cast actors who were able to make cliched situations believable.

Few actors can play annoying better than Veronica Cartwright whose Lambert is a bundle of nerves from the moment she awakens from her sleep-cocoon.

As the ship's mechanics obsessed with what they are getting paid, Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto provide some early comic relief, but quickly turn serious when the creature appears.

Even this early in the Alien series, Sigourney Weaver's Ripley shows why she is considered a quintessential strong female warrior.

It's fitting Alien is being released in time for Halloween because it is basically a haunted-house-in-space movie.

But with Scott at the helm it isn't quite that simple. He is just as inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey as he is The House on Haunted Hill.

The first half of the film is lyrical and dreamy but when it turns into a nightmare it's cold, dark and eerie.

It still seems strange that Ripley would risk her life and the lives of her fellow crew members to rescue the ship's cat but that little feline is responsible for almost as many shocks as the creature.

There's not that much new in the director's cut except a visit to the creature's nest where we learn what happened to Tom Skerritt after he disappears in the ventilation duct.

At this season of trick-or-treat, Alien is most definitely a treat even if for different reasons than it was 24 years ago.

(This film is rated PG)

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