Vox:

If you’ve never seen the original trailer for Alien, or if you haven’t seen it in a while, take a moment, turn up the volume, and immerse yourself in it.

Spoiler — it’s scary as hell.

The Alien trailer is a perennial entry on lists of the scariest trailers ever, and helped establish a template for how to edit an impactful horror trailer. You can see its influence in countless horror trailers today, to the point where its beats have practically become horror clichés in their own right.

Let’s break down the ingredients.

I still remember seeing the original trailer in theaters. It was wonderfully terrifying and left you with the feeling of, “I have no idea what that was but I want to see that movie!”