Chestburster

"In a few hours it's gonna burst through your ribcage, and you're gonna die. Any questions?"

―Ripley 8, to Larry Purvis regarding the Chestburster (from Alien Resurrection)

Template:Species InfoboxThe Chestburster (variously: Chest Burster, Chest-Burster or chestbuster) is the infant (or nymph, because it resembles the adult and does not form a cocoon to reach maturity) form of the species Xenomorph XX121. It is most well known for its horrific method of gestation — as an embryo it is implanted into a host lifeform's chest cavity by a Facehugger, and upon maturing it will erupt violently from the host's chest, killing them in an incredibly bloody and traumatic fashion. Chestbursters are small, generally not more than a foot tall and around two feet long including their tails, although larger examples have been seen.

Characteristics

Chestbursters resemble large worms, beige or brown in color and with a mouth of metallic teeth and a tail capable of propelling the creature at considerable speed. Some Chestbursters have been seen to possess arms, but this is not always the case, with others merely having small stubs where presumably the arms will eventually develop. It is possible a longer gestation period may determine the presence of arms at birth; notably, Queen Chestbursters (which have a considerably longer gestation period) have been known to birth with all four of their arms present, as well as legs and a partially developed head crest. Even regular Chestbursters have been known to birth fully formed, with arms and legs, essentially just a smaller version of the adult that it subsequently developed into. The reason for this is unclear, although it has been theorized that, in cases where a Chestburster is unable to escape its host's body at the usual time (perhaps due to greater structural integrity of the host's ribcage and chest cavity), the host may die prematurely as a result of the invasive organism within them, which will subsequently develop further until it is large and strong enough to emerge.

During development, the Chestburster is attached to the host via a small umbilical cord, through which it presumably gathers the nutrients it needs to grow. Owing to the Xenomorph's tendency to assimilate a degree of its host's genetic traits via the DNA Reflex, Chestbursters will also vary widely depending on the lifeform in which they gestate. For example, Xenomorphs born from Yautja will feature the mandibles of their host at birth.

Gestation

A Chestburster is generally implanted into its host by a Facehugger, although at least one Predalien — a juvenile Queen — has been known to insert embryos directly into a host without the need for a Facehugger. It is speculated that Chestbursters develop in a manner similar to that of the immature heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis), which migrates through the host body absorbing nutrients before establishing itself. It's unknown if the embryo travels to the host's stomach or to the bronchial tubes. Another theory is that the creature begins its life in the host body not as an embryo but as a tumor that later takes the shape of an immature Xenomorph. In this theory, what the Facehugger injects in the host is not an infant embryo but a small egg or even a virus that inserts its proteins in the host's DNA and commands its cells to "create" the Chestburster themselves.

The host's characteristics determine the Chestburster's features — embryos are thought to copy 10-15% of the host's genetic code in a process dubbed the "DNA Reflex". This genetic absorption is designed to help Xenomorphs adapt to the environment in which they are born, and also helps the developing creature to "hide" from the host organism's immune system. The assimilation of host DNA leads to physical (and possibly mental) variations in the adult creature. The Predalien Chestburster, for example, sports the signature mandibles of the Yautja (and grows dreadlocks upon reaching maturity), while quadrupedal hosts produce quadrupedal Xenomorphs. It is also theorized that the intelligence and instincts of the adult creature may be influenced by the host.

Certain physical defects in the host are known to adversely affect Chestburster development. For example, Larry Purvis, one of the civilians impregnated by science team aboard the USM Auriga, suffered from a thyroid deficiency which dramatically slowed the growth rate of the embryo inside him. As a result, birth did not take place until several hours after would normally be expected.

Birth

When fully developed, the Chestburster releases enzymes that soften the bone and surrounding tissues of the host's chest cavity to facilitate its egress, before finally forcing its way through the sternum. While the host may experience some discomfort in the minutes and hours leading up to the event, including mild chest pain and nausea, the actual birth itself is rapid, with the Chestburster exiting within seconds of the onset of severe pain upon the host. The process begins with cramp-like pains in the victim's chest but rapidly progresses to debilitating agony and uncontrollable convulsions. When the Chestburster finally emerges it induces severe shock, organ rupture and massive blood loss; death is almost instantaneous, but excruciatingly painful.

The Chestburster is arguably the most vulnerable stage of the Xenomorph's life cycle. While it grows rapidly, in the early stages the infant is almost defenseless, save for its acidic blood. If born in a populated area a Chestburster will immediately seek escape, preferably via a means that will not allow easy pursuit (e.g. through air ducts or vents, possibly going as far as burning a hole in a wall or floor with its own blood). While they have been known to attack and kill humans even in this infant stage, the Chestburster's proficiency in this regard is limited and the creatures are known to simply prefer hiding until they reach maturity. If undisturbed, newly born Chestbursters may consume parts of the human victim for sustenance. Growth is rapid, and Chestbursters can mature into a full-grown Drone within a few hours. The Chestburster will repeatedly shed its skin like a reptile as it grows, and these skins are often the most visible sign that a Xenomorph is nearby.

The extreme psychological impact of the Chestburster's birth mechanism has actually been known to have an adverse effect on the survival of other embryos — witnesses to the gory spectacle who discover they are impregnated themselves often seek to end their life before enduring such an agonizing end, whether through their own actions or assisted suicide. This can be fatal for the Chestburster, although depending on the manner of death it is possible for it to survive even after the host has died and emerge later. Stasis is known to halt Chestburster development and prevent birth, as seen when Corporal Tequila was placed into hypersleep to prevent the embryo inside her from hatching.

Survivability

While the birthing of a Chestburster is inherently fatal, it has been claimed that removing a Chestburster before it emerges is possible, leaving no long-term residual effects to the host. This procedure has been successfully carried out at least once, on Ripley 8 aboard the USM Auriga, who made a full recovery after the Cloned Queen embryo was removed from her chest — although it is debatable whether a normal human would be capable of surviving; Ripley 8, owing to her altered genetic structure, was essentially part-Xenomorph and therefore a unique case.

Further contradictory evidence (possibly supporting the theory that Ripley 8 survived solely because of her genetically engineered structure) has shown that even if a Chestburster is successfully removed from a host, the host will later die anyway as the placenta the Xenomorph creates during development is highly cancerous and quickly fatal. It is not known whether removing an embryo at an incredibly early stage would prevent this.

Non-canon Depictions

Alien 2: On Earth

Main article: Alien 2: On Earth

A Faceburster in Alien 2: On Earth.

In the non-canon film Alien 2: On Earth, the Xenomorph Chestbursters are shown to erupt from the host's face instead of their chest, earning them the colloquial name "Facebursters" among fans. At first glance, the Faceburster resembles the typical Chestburster, but when fully exposed they are considerably longer and more worm-like in proportion and appearance. They are also seen to use their long tails to slice off victims' heads.

While Alien 2: On Earth has nothing to do with the official franchise, the idea of an Alien erupting from someone's face was later used in Alien Resurrection, when a Chestburster emerges from Larry Purvis and bursts through Dr. Wren's head, erupting from his face, as the two struggle. The particular Chestburster responsible has been referred to as the "Faceburster" by the film's crew and fans, although anatomically it is no different from a standard Chestburster.

Behind the Scenes

Design

A production still of the Chestburster scene in Alien.

The entire concept of the Chestburster was intended as the ultimate perversion of joyful birth — the wonder of new life tainted by the horrific death of the person giving birth to it. Intended to be Alien's big shocker moment, the Chestburster was perhaps, next to the physical form of the fully grown Alien, the most important design to be made. The crew acknowledged that, if the Chestbursting scene lacked punch, then the entire film would likely be sunk as the audience may not take further events and dangers seriously. For the infant creature's design, H. R. Giger was pointed towards the art of Francis Bacon by Alien's director, Ridley Scott. Bacon, already a favourite artist of Giger's, served as the inspiration for the first incarnation of the Chestburster. "I think when you want to be really scared," Ridley Scott said to Cinefantastique, "you've got to think about what it is that makes you very physically uneasy, that upsets you in a primal way. And I'm not easily upset, but we looked at various painters' works, and the one that caught us was by Francis Bacon, the three flesh necks with the jaws on the end. The primality, if there is such a word, was what interested me."

"Ridley Scott asked me to do something based on a crucifixion painting by Francis Bacon, in which the only thing of the figure you see is a mouth and some flesh behind. He wanted something like that which could go into the stomach or come out of it. First it was designed as a little dinosaur and I didn't like it at all, but finally we gave him a worm-like shape with no legs... I believe the strongest, scariest feeling is to see an alien-worm inside a person's body moving under his skin."

―H. R. Giger on his initial design concept for the Chestburster.

Giger's first abortive attempt at the Chestburster, inspired by Francis Bacon.

Giger's first Chestburster design was received with reservation and ridicule. "To me, it looked like a plucked turkey," said Roger Dicken, "a veined, repulsive-looking thing with fangs... Obviously, you couldn't get something the size of a large turkey out of a human chest, but they were going to cheat it somehow." Despite his incredulity at the design, Dicken crafted a workable prop. "Dicken reproduced it very faithfully," Ridley told Cinefex. "The problem was that what looked great on paper didn't in actuality." Dicken had brought the prop to the studio and operated it like a hand puppet. The effect looked "entirely comical – it looked like some kind of plucked, demented turkey."

Frightened of the Chestburster eliciting laughs rather than screams, Ridley went back to the drawing board. "We went back and re-examined various illustrations and ideas, and tried to come up with something we thought would be the most frightening," he told Cinefantastique. "I wanted more of a biological link between the baby, which is what we were really designing, and what the final creature would look like. And I wanted it to be a very smooth object. The other was all wrinkled and ancient-looking, like some malevolent muppet. And when it came out, I wanted it to look very rude – and totally carnivorous." Giger also worked on another Chestburster design, somewhat similar to the creature finally used in the film, but with more vicious fangs and a misshapen body. However, this was not used, despite support from Dan O'Bannon.

"We worked for weeks on the baby [Chestburster]. I knew I didn't want something with bumps and warts and claws. You know, I find that most horror films have never really frightened me; and I tend not to be convinced by a lot of science-fiction films specifically because of the effects. So I knew it had to be good, this baby. We decided that the big chap, in embryo form, would have a head either tilted down or tilted back. We tilted it back because it seemed more obscene that way, more reptilian, more phallic."

―Ridley Scott on the Chestburster's redesign.

Ultimately, the creature seen on screen was primarily designed by Dicken, with input from Scott. According to Dicken, "The overall look of the Chestburster was this long banana-shaped thing with a head on it from the Giger drawing. I made various models of it. One afternoon, Ridley Scott came over here and over cups of tea we literally constructed the thing by trying on different tails and so on, and it was finally agreed that that was what it would finally look like." The creature originally featured arms, but these were ultimately removed from the final creation.

The original Chestbursting

Behind the scenes image of the Chestburster erupting from Kane.

The creature's birth in Alien was shot using an artificial torso filled with blood and viscera, with actor John Hurt's head and arms coming through from underneath the table. The production crew acquired animal innards from a local butcher's shop to dress the prosthetic chest. Bar Hurt, Ridley Scott kept the design of the Chestburster hidden from the cast. While the actors knew that the creature would be bursting out of Hurt, they had not been told that a large amount of fake blood would also be squirting out in every direction from high-pressure pumps and squibs, and their horrified reactions in the film are genuine. The Chestburster was shoved up through the torso by a puppeteer who held it on a stick; initial takes failed because the puppet would not penetrate Hurt's shirt, and so the clothing was thinned with acid and scored with razor blades to weaken it. Producer and co-writer David Giler told Cinefantastique, "The 'Chest Birth' was simulated for the actors by surprising them with a shower of animal entrails. That's why their looks of disgust and horror are so real. They had no idea what we were going to shoot that day."

"I was there, and they had three cameras set up 'cause they wanted to catch it from all angles and all the cameras were covered in clear plastic tarps. The lenses were covered with flat optical class like underwater cameras and Ridley and the D.P. and all of the technicians were all wearing overalls up to their necks. It took them three to four hours to get the actor doing to do the stunt rigged because there was mechanical stuff involved. Meanwhile the other actors didn't come on set, I don't know where they were, they had a room where the actors could hang out and talk to each other. Then they brought them in when they were ready for it, they hadn't seen all the preparation. All they did was they walked on, they saw all these tarps, and they saw huge hydraulic machines with hoses leading to this rigged man, and they saw everybody wearing coveralls. I looked at Sigourney Weaver, who's the lead. I saw her face as she looked at the tarp, coveralls and camera, and she seemed to go a little shaky. The actors looked real uneasy when they saw the set-up because it looked like they were trying to prepare for Vesuvius."

―Dan O'Bannon regarding the day of filming.

"I knew that the special effects men were trying to rig the blood so that it would hit me. I was absolutely green. There had been a huge vat of kidneys and livers and intestines floating around on the set for two days and the stench was awful."

―Sigourney Weaver.

"I noticed Sigourney really looking scared. I said, 'You're really getting into character.' She said, 'No, I have a feeling I really feel I'm going to be pretty repulsed right now.' A couple years later, I read an interview where she said, 'The reason I knew it was I saw Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shusett over in the corner, and they were putting on rubber raincoats and laughing like little kids on Christmas morning. So I knew it was going to be a blood-bath!' It worked so great. Veronica Cartwright – when the blood hit her in the fact, she totally passed out. I heard from Yaphet Kotto's wife that after that scene he would go to his room every night and not talk to anybody."

―Ronald Shusett.

"The amount of blood was just unparalleled. I saw Veronica Cartwright get drenched from head to toe in blood and scream her fool head off and fall backwards over a table and brain herself... Then afterwards these two people pick Veronica Cartwright up and she was weak-kneed and they had to help her off the set. She was drenched, all her clothes sticking to her, and her hair sticking to her with this red dye and she was near hysterics. And twenty minutes later they come back and they had showered her and fixed her up and put a duplicate costume on her and she looked the same, but a little spooked, and I went up to her and I said, 'That was really terrific. Was that all acting?' And she looked at and said in a kind of spooked voice, 'Well, I was a little freaked-out.'""

―Dan O'Bannon.

"John Hurt had been lying there for about four hours while they fixed him up. By the time I got there I was thinking, 'uh oh.' They had three cameras so they could get all our first reactions – our gut reactions. That's what you see in the film. Those reactions are totally raw. Nobody quite anticipate what was going to happen. I was told I'd get some blood on me. I had no idea the hose was pointed at my face. I felt very queasy afterwards.""

―Veronica Cartwright.

After reviewing the footage of the scene, many of the film's crew became concerned that the sequence was simply too graphic and would be rejected by Fox executives. While Fox was indeed nervous about the bloodshed, they eventually allowed the scene to stay. It has since become an iconic moment not just in the film itself, but in cinema in general. Film critic Mark Kermode later summarized, "This compellingly grotesque spectacle has become as shockingly iconic as the head spinning sequence in The Exorcist, or the shower scene in Psycho."

Aliens

ALIENS Behind-the-Scenes Chestburster FX Test

Behind the scenes footage of the Chestburster mechanism used in Aliens featuring commentary by Stephen Norrington who built the Chestburster's mechanism.

According to Matt Winston, "No sequel to ALIEN would have been complete without paying homage to the infamous 'Chestburster' scene, so director James Cameron memorably included the grotesque parasites in ALIENS as well."

For Aliens, the design of the Chestburster from the first film remained practically unchanged by the special effects team at Stan Winston's studio, apart from adding two tiny arms to create consistency between the infant creature and the anatomy of the fully-grown Warrior. Cameron and Winston decided that the addition of arms also made sense on a purely functional level, allowing the Chestburster to pull itself free from its victim's chest.

The lightweight hero chestburster mechanism was capable of fluid movement.

To achieve the effect of the Chestburster emerging from Mary (Barbara Coles), Winston and his crew created two Chestburster puppets. The first was a simple glove puppet, built to be tough enough to rip through Coles' artificial foam latex chest and clothing. The second, "post-burst" puppet was a more delicate animatronic, incorporating cable-controlled mechanisms that allowed a wide-range of fluid movements.

Trivia

• The Chestburster scene is said to be the sole reason Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett's script was originally picked up by 20th Century Fox, such was it's perceived impact.
• The time it takes for a Chestburster to develop and emerge from its victim varies wildly throughout the Alien series. Following the death of the Facehugger attached to Kane in Alien, it takes only a few hours for the embryo inside him to emerge. However, in Alien³ the Chestburster inside Ripley takes several days to develop (although this particular embryo was that of a Queen, and can therefore be assumed to have a longer gestation period, due to it's greater size and complexity). In Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Chestburster development was accelerated rapidly, to the point where the creatures would emerge only 5 to 10 minutes after implantation. In the more recent video games featuring the Xenomorph, a gestation period of several hours is once again typical.
• Despite being so integral to the Xenomorph's lifecycle, the Chestburster is conspicuously absent from Alien: Isolation. However, the bodies of people who died giving birth to a Chestburster are found on Sevastopol.

Appearances

• Alien/novel/comic (First Appearance)
• novel/novel
• Alien³/novel/comic
• Alien Resurrection/novel/comic
• Alien vs. Predator/novel (film)
• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
• Aliens versus Predator 2/Primal Hunt
• Aliens vs. Predator (2010 video game)
• Aliens: Infestation
• Aliens: Colonial Marines/Stasis Interrupted (video game)
• AVP: Evolution
• Alien: Out of the Shadows

See Also

• Bellybursters — Another embryonic Xenomorph form that differs in its gestation and birth characteristics.

Gallery

A Yautja spawned Chestburster.

A quadrupedal animal spawned Chestburster.

The Cloned Queen Chestburster being extracted from Ripley 8 in Alien Resurrection.

The Chestburster emerges from Pvt. Bella.

A Queen Chestburster emerges from Ripley.

Behind the scenes

H. R. Giger's second attempt at the Chestburster, ultimately unused.

The Chestburster puppet in Alien.

Videos

ALIENS Behind-the-Scenes Chestburster Mechanism Test with Stephen Norrington