One of the most horrific moments in sci-fi film history is the "chestburster" scene in Alien. Now, thanks to a new book, we know what inspired that nightmarish sequence.
A newly published book called Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror, by New York Times journalist Jason Zinoman, recounts the history of the modern horror film circa the late '60s and '70s—when horror auteurs like John Carpenter, George A. Romero, Tobe Hooper and David Cronenberg were rising through the ranks. A large section of the book is devoted to the relationship between Carpenter and writer/director Dan O'Bannon, who made one movie together (the cult classic Dark Star) before going their separate ways.
O'Bannon (who died in 2009) went on to write the script for Alien, but what wasn't widely known is that he suffered from Crohn's disease, a debilitating digestive disorder. According to Zinoman's book, "the digestion process felt like something bubbling inside of [O'Bannon] struggling to get out." From his own torment came the idea for the alien bloodily punching its way out of John Hurt's chest during dinner.
The book also mentions that O'Bannon hand-picked H.R. Giger to design the alien's several stages of growth and insisted that director Ridley Scott, who was not a horror fan, look at The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in order to get a feel for what he had to accomplish.
There are apparently many more anecdotes of this sort in Shock Value, so we'll be picking up a copy as soon as possible. And the next time you watch Alien, remember poor Dan O'Bannon and how his own illness inspired one of sci-fi's most awful deaths.
And check out these other little known sci-fi facts:
TheDudeNeverBowls on May 20th, 2017 at 14:22 UTC »
This thread has been both enlightening and very sad.
Robots-are-alright on May 20th, 2017 at 13:52 UTC »
My wife has crohns. Can confirm it really sucks.
The sad thing is, 90% of the time people don't believe the amount of pain she is in and don't understand.
Team_Braniel on May 20th, 2017 at 13:35 UTC »
My mother died 3 weeks ago from complications related to crohns.
She was on immunosuppressors to help fight the crohns.
She went to the doc with severe bloating and abdominal pain, doc orders a scan, scan finds air in her abdomen and possible holes in her intestines, orders emergency surgery.
Surgery goes good, everything is repaired.
That evening in recovery she gets an infection and goes into shock. We get the call that there is a problem and drive up (from orlando to basically chicago). She's septic and her organs are failing, her immune system is too repressed to fight the aggressive infection. Her blood isn't holding oxygen, she's brain damaged, on a respirator, kidneys, liver, everything is failing.
I spend the night with her, my brother comes in the next morning and as we are discussing orders with the doctor in terms of saving her if she codes, she codes. We let her die, I made the call right there in front of her as she was dying.
Sorry for the depressing story. Its been a long 3 weeks and we still have another month of work to do to get things in order.
Don't fuck around with Crohn's.
EDIT
Thank you everyone for your well wishes. Sorry for the emotions, I'm still dealing with how to process everything and getting it out in the open on Reddit helps.
Here is a list of subreddits that will have better info and help for people dealing with these kind of digestive issues:
/r/CrohnsDisease
/r/UlcerativeColitis
/r/IBD
/r/Celiac