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Comment by murat124 | Hacker News Reader

I'm fascinated by the work that was put into making this legendary movie. Is there a specific genre name given to movies that have only a few people throughout the entirety of the movie in a closed environment? If there was, Alien would definitely top the list.

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The late Blake Snyder wrote a couple of books ("Save The Cat!", recommended) on screenwriting with the hypothesis that there are only ten basic story paradigms, and Alien is the classic "Monster In The House" example, along with Jaws.

In short, a MITH movie has our heroes trapped in a space due to a sin not of their making, there's a monster, and at least one character who is a wounded half-man harbinger of doom.

Once you know the ten categories, movies become pretty predictable after the first reel or so, so maybe you don't want to learn them.

Predictable movies are always predictable, but knowing the categories and Save the Cat structure is fun because then you can see when truly talented people subvert it and twist those "rules".

The tenfold categories are also a way to rescue a bad movie-watching experience, because you can at least debate whether (say) Ad Astra was a ROP or something else instead of just bitching about the science violations.

Michael Crichton loved writing books on this trope.

e.x.

Jurassic Park - Stuck on an island full of dinosaurs

Congo - Stuck in a lost city full of deadly intelligent apes

Sphere - Stuck in an alien ship on the bottom of the ocean

Andromeda Strain - stuck in a high-security bio-research facility with a deadly alien pathogen.

I struggled with whether or not to include that one.. haven't actually read it and wasn't sure.

The whole genre is "Lost World" and goes all the way back to King Solomon's Mines in the 1800s.

In Andromeda Strain, there's a bit of a twist in that as the situation with the pathogen in the lab deteriorates, the automatic safety systems start locking it down even more tightly. The lab is made up of multiple levels, with the lowest level (underground) being the most controlled. For plot reasons, one of the researchers has to try to get from the lowest level to an upper one and the security systems actively try to stop him.

Westworld, stuck in a theme park with a killer robot (the 1973 movie, I haven't seen the new show)

First season is worth a watch IMO. It handles topics addressed by the movie in greater depth (sentient robots, a bit like the story of Pinocchio).

The other seasons are made confusing seemingly on purpose without adding to the story.

Frustratingly, the subsequent seasons try to address different issues and questions without answering any of the quests raised in the previous seasons. It's almost like they want to jump from topic to topic so as not to spoil the potential of what's worked on so far.

> Is there a specific genre name given to movies that have only a few people throughout the entirety of the movie in a closed environment?

In TV this form is often referred to as a "bottle episode"[1], and there's at least one article describing Alien as a "bottle movie"[2]. Presumably, this was done to maximize what could be done with its $11M (!) budget.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_episode

[2] https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/alien-disney.html

It's not Alien but I think it fits in the (unknown) category really well... Buried, with Ryan Reynolds. It's a pretty good flick that's filmed almost entirely in a small dark box with only him in it.

And perhaps one of the only movies without the standard Ryan Reynolds quips and sarcasm! (I just watched The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard and was a little put off by just how often he still does this, knowing that he has acting chops that don't necessitate it)

> Is there a specific genre name given to movies that have only a few people throughout the entirety of the movie in a closed environment?

I seem to recall ebcountering one that is somewhat more specific than TV Tropes’ “Closed Circle” [0] but less specific than “Ten Little Murder Victims” [1] that fits this, but can’t put my finger on it right now.

[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClosedCircle

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TenLittleMurderV...

“huis clos”? It’s commonly used in French at least. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/huis_clos

It's very common in plays with small casts converted into movies, for obvious reasons.

This led me to the following tangent: framing 12 Angry Men as an MITH is an interesting thought experiment.

Its why I like Oz (series) too. There is something to be said for understanding the boundary conditions in full. Funny thing is that my partner hates this kind of thing :/

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