This is 𝙎𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙋𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙖, my contribution to the ArtBook tribute to this 1986 horror masterpiece, out now in the UK from Titan Books and Printed In Blood.

Aliens came out when I was six, and that’s about how old I was when I watched it for the first time, fresh off a Russian-dubbed bootleg VHS tape dad proudly got his hands on, somehow, despite the Soviet embargo on Hollywood at the time. I was transfixed by the film’s exploration of the innate human fear of bodily invasion, and its particular grimy iconography of arduous, isolated life in space left a lasting imprint. But what resonates most is Ellen Ripley. Before Aliens, my many action heroes were beefy, brawny, and, with few exceptions, not-especially-sharp men; after Ripley, I never looked back. In this film she’s approached for her competence and her expertise. She’s also acutely human. And, as it becomes clear later in the film, she is at the centre of the narrative not in spite of being a woman, but precisely because of it. In 1980s Moscow, I’d never seen anyone like Ellen Ripley, and no one’s come close since, either. Watching her in “Aliens” at six changed my understanding of what’s possible, indelibly.