ALIEN CREATOR R.I.P.

Sci-fi horror guru Dan O'Bannon, 63,  who gave the world Alien departs our dimension after a brief illness.

O'Bannon, a quirky and unassuming writer from St. Louis, met then-unknown director John Carpenter when they both were students at USC film school in the early 1970s. 

The two wrote a short film which then became one of the first indie low-budget midnight movies of the 1970s Dark Star (1974) . O'Bannon also saw duty as special effects supervisor, production designer, editor and actor in the 2001 spoof about  slackers in space menaced by an alien beach ball with clawed feet.

Bannon then pitched in on the special effects work on Star Wars for George Lucas in 1977.

Teaming with Ron Shusset he re-tooled Dark Star into an IT!The Terror from Beyond Space/ HP Lovecraft homage - Alien - for director Ridley Scott. 

The chest-burster and classic ad campaign "In Space No One Can hear You Scream" insured the sci-fi horror flick status in pop culture.  The script was originally entitled The Star Beast.

O'Bannon also contributed to sequels Aliens (1986) for James Cameron, Alien3 (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997) as well as the two Alien vs. Predator films.

O'Bannon was working on the untitled Alien prequel due on the big screen in 2011.

The talented scribe also adapted two Philip K. Dick tales We Can Remember It for You Wholesale and Second Variety into the Schwarzenegger vehicle Total Recall (1990) and Screamers (1995).

He also wrote space vampire fear fest Lifeforce and as writer/director he helmed The Return of the Living Dead (1985) which forever cemented the notion zombies enjoy eating brains.

"I love gore films and I grew up with '50s monster movies,"  O'Bannon told Cinefantastique magazine in 1979.

"The idea for the monster in Alien originally came from a stomach ache I had."