# "Alien" film series: How many "chestburster" scenes have there been? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762 "2017-02-01T18:41:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/1 "2017-02-01T18:41:24Z")
With the recent demise of John Hurt, the famous chestburster scene from the original Alien film naturally comes to mind. If you haven’t seen it, check it out: [POP!!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsD6AL3HJtM) I was trying to recall how many other characters in the rest of the films suffered this same indignity. I think I’ve seen them all, but I can’t recall any other specific characters going through this particular ordeal. Does anyone remember others? Or better yet, have a link to a list? Thanks! (don’t need answer fast) ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/2 "2017-02-01T19:32:12Z")
The character “John Hurt”, played by John Hurt, went through a memorable scene in a space diner with a chestburster, which then broke into a beautiful rendition of “Hello Ma Baby” while making a grand exit… _Spaceballs_, still the reigning champion in the “Movies I’ve Watched Most Often” category. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/3 "2017-02-01T19:38:20Z")
In the sequel, Ripley suffers it in a dream and the Marines find a woman colonist who begs for death moments before an alien breaks free (and both are torched by a flamethrower). I don’t remember the other films in the franchise well enough to speak aside from Ripley having one burst for real at the end of 3 as she fell into the vat of molten metal (she got better). ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/4 "2017-02-01T19:42:58Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I was trying to recall how many other characters in the rest of the films suffered this same indignity. I think I’ve seen them all, but I can’t recall any other specific characters going through this particular ordeal. Does anyone remember others? I see **Jophiel** snuck in here while I was typing. In _Aliens_, it happens to Ripley in a dream shortly after she returns to Gateway. Later, on LV-426, one of the colonists who’s been stuck to the walls of the hive bursts, and marines quickly annihilate the chestburster with an incinerator. This is the first any other surviving character besides Ripley sees of this part of the aliens’ life-cycle. It happens to poor Ripley again at the end of _Alien 3_ (it’s even a queen this time!), and you get to see evidence that it’s happened to the prison dog as well, although this ordeal takes place mostly off-screen. The resulting bug is more dog-like than human. All of the hijacked people in _Alien: Resurrection_ have embryos inside them, but IIRC, only one of them actually emerges on-screen, towards the end. There are plenty of fully-grown adults on board the space station to cause problems for the humans. The genetically-modified queen gives birth, but it’s more like a human birth than the manner normal for her original species. In _Prometheus_, it’s the unfortunate Engineer who suffers this fate, although Dr. Shaw is well on her way when she gets Ms. Vickers’s personal automated medical bay to perform an emergency C-section. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen _Aliens vs. Predator_, but I seem to recall some scenes near the beginning taking place in pre-historic times of captured humans being the hosts for aliens which the predators then hunt. I took a blue pill after _AVP: Requiem_. Obviously, one of the Predators suffers this indignity, resulting in the Predalien that wreaks havoc across the remainder of this trainwreck, but I’m not really willing to go back and waste another two hours of my life sitting through it to find out if there are any more. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/5 "2017-02-01T20:37:37Z")
Are they actually bursting through the chests, though? Seems like the least efficient point of egress. Unless dramatic flair is a somehow vital??? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/6 "2017-02-01T20:53:09Z")
Well, they tend to come out below the sternum but “Tummy Burster” sounds more like a 3lb cheeseburger that comes with a free t-shirt than a xenomorphic horror ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/7 "2017-02-01T21:16:30Z")
In the original alien spaceship in Alien, I think they find a skeleton of an alien with a burst ribcage. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/8 "2017-02-01T21:36:14Z")
What about the knucklehead who thought that that snake-creature was so cute in _Prometheus_? Wasn’t he rewarded with a chest-burster? ::Googling:: It looks like the life form exited his body back out through his mouth. That seems like a more efficient way of doing things. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/9 "2017-02-02T03:04:03Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Well, they tend to come out below the sternum but “Tummy Burster” sounds more like a 3lb cheeseburger that comes with a free t-shirt than a xenomorphic horror The tummy bursters are in AVP:R in which the Xeno-Predator hybrid pumps a bunch of embryos down the throats of pregnant women and eventually their stomachs burst open with a bunch of baby xenos issuing forth. Apparently the producers included this scene to establish how a queen alien can get a hive going quickly before getting herself stuck on that big egg sac. I don’t recall specifics but I am sure there were a few more chestburster scenes in AVP:R. There’s a bunch in AVP as well but since the crew is all wearing bulky winter clothing you don’t see much. I appreciated the gore discretion shots, especially considering how they turned the gore up to 11 in AVP:R. ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2017, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/10 "2017-02-02T04:33:31Z")
> [@psiekier](#): > > It’s been a long time since I’ve seen _Aliens vs. Predator_, but I seem to recall some scenes near the beginning taking place in pre-historic times of captured humans being the hosts for aliens which the predators then hunt. There is a very clear on-screen chestburster scene in _AvP_ - Adele Rousseau dies at 44:30. The [van Däniken-esque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken) flashback scenes of the ancient cultures aren’t at the beginning of the film like I remembered; they begin almost exactly one hour in. There is the implication that the sacrificial victims succumb to the chestburster experience, but the film stops just short of showing this on-screen. Alexa puts down the spear the Predator made her and uses the last bullet in a Desert Eagle she finds to put Sebastian out of his misery at about 1:16:00 before the chestburster inside him can make its way out. As she turns and walks away, the Predator watches with his infravision and sees that the alien is still alive, but he catches it in his hand and crushes the life out of it when it leaps at him. Finally, at 1:28:00 - the very end of the movie - the Predalien chestburster emerges from the Predator lying on a slab on board the Predator ship as it leaves Earth’s orbit. ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/11 "2017-02-04T05:49:43Z")
We have to be careful how we answer this, **Tim R. Mortiss**. There are, as **Finagle** pointed out, characters (largely unnamed) who are seen definitively to have been the victims of chestbursters prior to the scene in which they appear, plus, there are chestburstings that either occur but are not (completely) shown on screen, or are otherwise witnessed in ways such that the audience has to infer what has happened. I propose the question, “how many times in the _Alien_ movie franchise has a chestburster emerged from its host in full clear view of the audience?” The number, as you originally postulated, was pretty small until (as **DWMarch** noted) they upped the gore in _Alien vs. Predator: Requiem_. I count ten: [ul][li]Kane (_Alien_)[_][unnamed Acheron colonist] (Aliens)[_]Ripley (_Alien 3_)[_]Rousseau (AvP)[_]Scar the Predator (_AvP_)[_]Scar the Predator (again, in AvP: Requiem)[_]Buddy Benson (_AvP: Requiem_)[_]Sam Benson (AvP: Requiem)[_][pregnant woman in hospital] (_AvP: Requiem_)The Engineer (_Prometheus_)[/ul][/li]I don’t know that the other ones qualify. In the cases of Ripley’s dream in _Aliens_, the dog in _Alien 3_, and the sacrificial maiden in _AvP_, the scene either ends before the alien emerges, or the crucial moment takes place off screen. Specifically, in _Alien 3_, I suspect the reason the alien emerging from the dog was not shown was to heighten the audience’s expectation that this would result in a different type of xenomorph (following the tradition established in _Aliens_ of introducing a new creature with each film) to be revealed later. The scenes in _Alien: Resurrection_ probably shouldn’t count, either. Gediman surgically removes a chestburster from Ripley clone #8 toward the beginning of the film. They sew her back up and she survives to reach Earth at the end. When the alien bursts out of the last surviving sleeper on board the _Betty_, you don’t actually get to see it. The sleeper viciously pummels Dr. Wren, grapples him, and holds his body in such a way that the chestburster explodes outward through Wren’s skull, killing him. The survivors then saturate both Wren and the alien with gunfire, finishing them off. The audience also doesn’t get to see the chestburster escape Sebastian’s lifeless body in _AvP_, either; Scar the Predator is watching it squirm around inside by using his infravision, but then the camera cuts to an external shot of the chestburster leaping through the air into Scar’s hand, where he then strangles it. I bit the bullet (man, the things I do to fight ignorance!) and spun through _Alien vs. Predator: Requiem_ tonight at high speed, watching the bodies pile up. The chestburster scene from the end of the first _AvP_ movie replays at the beginning to establish how the Predalien is on the Predator ship. Then, the deer hunter, Buddy Benson, and his young son, Sam, are the first human victims - “impregnated” as Ripley calls it in _Aliens_ - of the facehuggers that have escaped from the wrecked Predator vessel. The only other scene like this is the pregnant woman in the hospital who gives birth to a clutch of Predalien babies on-screen. The sheer number of aliens the military, townspeople, and Predator face imply that she couldn’t be the only host, though. The scene in _Spaceballs_ simply wouldn’t count because it’s not part of the _Alien_ franchise. Additionally, I should mention, we might have to come in here and command this thread to rise from its grave with the release of _Alien: Covenant_ later this year. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-film-series-how-many-chestburster-scenes-have-there-been/778762/12 "2017-02-04T16:24:41Z")
_Ice Pirates_: they are about to eat turkey when an alien bursts from it. “What was that?” “Space herpes.” It’s a movie that does not hold up well with time.