Alien 
I watched Alien with my flatmate who had never seen it before, he's a sucker for a strong female lead so I knew he'd love this one. Immediately he was drawn into the film and every time I looked over he was biting his fists with tension! He gasped out loud when Lambert slapped Ripley (we were watching the Director's Cut) and he seemed to be very concerned over the fate of the cat
It never ceases to amaze me how well made this film is, to be able to make a haunted house film set in space, to make it scary and tense as well as very human is a good skill. My flatmate commented on how modern it looked and he expected it to look quite old fashioned for a film made in the 70's - I have to agree, apart from 'Mother' and the computer screens on display, there isn't much in the film to give away the period of filming.
The Maze Runner 
I was going to go see this on the big screen, but at the last minute got cold feet, worried that it was going to be crap and £20 down the drain. Now it's on Sky Movies so I gave it a go. It's firmly in the
"not as bad as I was expecting it to be" camp. I actually found myself quite enjoying this teen adventure movie which is both well made and well acted, in the most part. I suppose that the premise of the film is it's worst attribute, I found myself jokingly saying to my mate during the film "I've seen Lord of the Flies already", "I've seen Labyrinth already" and funny enough "I've seen Alien already..." in reference to the creatures inside the maze.
That being said, the action was well orchestrated and the tension was well executed, and I found myself holding my breath while scenes unfolded! Not a perfect film but very enjoyable and I'm intrigued about the checking the books out afterwards.