The Viper Pit / Nest

Leading from:
Alien Resurrection

Ripley lying lying on the living landscape

a)  Various tentacles and protuberances
This was one of the scenes that they had to fight for in order to save it from being scrapped for budget purposes. Sigourney Weaver remembered when she first saw the set, she was amazed by this landscape of alien parts with various tentacles and protuberances, designed by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff.

"What are those things?" she asked Alec Gillis 

"You don't want to know" he replied with a smile "But we call the area where you're sucked down, the Sphincter "

Johnathan Leahy, was in charge of spread 55 gallons of Methocel slime to everything including Sigourney

Sigourney crawls over this dark, squiggly, curiously prickly set and lies down

"Open the sphincter" calls Alec

Sigourney closes her eyes and what is beneath her comes alive. Large greasy tails flick at her cheeks, limbs and members nudge and squeeze her.

As she gingerly arranged her tall, lean frame into a slimy cavity full of flailing tentacles, it was as if the cosmic destiny of it all revealed itself. "

Sigourney joked "This has been my goal, Everything I've done in my career has built to this.' 

After a few moments, the platform beneath her sinks and the rubber sphincter indeed sucks her down until she disappears beneath the stage. And then she opens her slime encrusted eyes and sees the beaming faces of the puppeteers.

During the scene, somehow a tail always ends up between her legs. This is of course very sexual, sometimes it is good and something it looks a bit strange, but on purpose they want to tread that line.

"Who's on that particular tail?" Sigourney asks Alec

"I am" he replies

"You're a sick puppy" she says

Alec then instructs another member of the team to be more intimate with his alien body part, but the puppeteer's response is "This is difficult for me. I'm married"

Turning to Sigourney, Alec then says "Nice guys need to be pushed to perversion"

b) The Viper's Pit / Nest
ADI created a set piece known as the Viper's Pit or indeed the Viper's Nest, a living landscape that also serves as an entrance to the Queen's chamber. Ripley is pulled in through the gap in the floor in the corridor and she lands she lands on this living carpet before passing through its central sphincter. In the film itself,  it was not easy to make out the details that made up the piece. It was a scene that they had to fight for because they were being told they couldn't have it and one reason was because they didn't want to see Ripley calling into an sphincter. It was designed to be one of these abstract scenes that not everyone was going to immediately understand but it was a sort of sensuous , sinuous world of parts and Ripley was surrendering to this strange thing. Sigourney,  it might have been something that Giger and Ridley Scott would have wanted to out in the film.

c) Intended impact on the viewer
In terms of this film, it was ideally the sort of odd thing that might have made people ask questions about exactly what they were looking at and what it was supposed to be, maybe in the manner of how everything about the Space Jockey in Alien was a big question.

Vipers nest(from SFX Special Editions no.67, 2014)

d) Borrowed from HR Giger without giving credit
While ADI created this set, once the photos of the piece were published in the British scifi magazine SFX, it was obvious to Giger himself who had seen the article and indeed some others who knew Giger's work very well that it was based on Giger's painting The Passage Temple Entrance and at the time of the movie , no direct credit was given and nothing was said about its direct origins in the interview but acknowledgement was given to inspiration from Giger's work at least. As far as I noticed from the article immediately at the time, ADI had obviously based it on the section of the painting rearranging the details, the very same part of the painting that Ridley Scott chose for the underbelly of the Facehugger in Alien (See also: The facehuggers sculpted underbelly)

source:  image from SFX magazine #32,  Dec 1997, p32, (UK version)
merged with same photo printed in
from SFX Special Editions no.67, 2014)

source:  SFX magazine #32,  Dec 1997, p31, (UK version)

single segment from Vipers Nest

section from Giger's 
Passage Temple entrance painting

"Passagen-Tempel / Eingangspartie" (Passage Temple / entrance section) Work # 262

1. The key to the consistency of all the creatures in Alien Resurrection was to keep within the boundaries already set by H R Giger. Although the artist was not approached to add his own signature to Jeunet's film, his influence was still an important factor to the new to the new film's creature designs. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the nightmarish location of the Aliens' lair, or the Viper's Nest as it's been affectionately labeled. (SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p30, (UK version)
2. The Viper's Nest is one of the biggest things ADI have ever had to create for any film. (SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p33, (UK version))
3. Tom Woodruff: I'm really looking forwards to this sequence. It's a scene where Ripley is abducted and taken to the Viper's Nest, what we called our living landscape, with Sigourney nested back into all these writhing pieces of Alien. It's like an H R Giger painting come to life, and it's enveloping her. It's going to be a startling moment when you realise how all encompassing the aliens are to Ripley. It's such a literal expression of the Alien all completely engulfing her to the point where the Queen gives birth to the bitter end, which of course, we can't talk about. (SFX magazine #32, Dec 1997, p30, (UK version)
4. Woodruff, an excellent effect specialist, said about his "Alien Viper's Nest" : "It is like an HR Giger's painting come to life." Yes it is. It has been newly stolen from my book "Necronomicon". As photographed from above, you will see that it is a section of my painting "Passagen-Tempel / Eingangspartie" (Passage Temple / entrance section) Work # 262. This painting existed three years before the first Alien movie had even started to be filmed. (letter to 20th Century Fox by H R Giger, December 19th, 1997) 
5. Giger: The fact is, I saw in Alien 4 for example they didn't only use the Alien, they also used for example, parts of the passage temple: the entry section was used for the viper's nest, like where Ripley lies in that nest and so on, (report from raw Giger interview for Alien Evolution)
6. Interviewer: There is a sequence in which Ripley descends into the coils of the Alien. What do you think is going on in that scene
   Sigourney Weaver: Again, this scene is one we had to fight for. They did not want Ripley descending into the sphincter of the alien world which is what Alec Gillis Special Effects used to call it and to me it was everything Giger, Ridley, everybody would have wanted, this sort of sensuous, sinuous world of parts and god help you if you're there. And yet, at the same time there's a great... there's sort of that thing of how she wants to sort of surrender to it, to me it was, you know, all about life. It's horrifying and you can't... you know you're attracted to it. It's fabulous stuff. But we had to fight of course for that scene because it was not an action scene, it was all sort of this subliminal erotic stuff.(reported from Alien Evolution documentary 2001 interviews)
7. Sigourney Weaver: Today we shoot the scene where the alien pulls me down into the Viper Pit and carries me off.  (Premiere: December 1997, p147)
8. Sigourney Weaver: Later that day, we move onto the most amazing shot in the picture - Ripley in the Viper Pit. Tom and his partner in creature effects, Alec Gillis, have designed a monstrous landscape of alien parts: writing tails and undulating limbs. When I arrive on the set, I am knocked out. It is a Hieronymus Bosch nightmare of tentacles and protuberances.  
   "What are those things?' I ask Alec
   
   "You don't want to know," he says, "But we call the area where you're sucked down the Sphincter. " He smiles.
   
   Jonathan Leahey, the slime meister does his spiderwebby thing, applying over 55 gallons of Methocel to everything, including me,
   
   I crawl over this dark, squiggly, curiously prickly set and lie down. "Open the sphincter," Alec calls. I close my eyes and what's beneath me shudders and comes alive. Large greasy tails flick at my cheek, limbs and members nudge and squeeze me. After a few moments, the platform beneath me sinks and the rubber sphincter does indeed suck me down until I disappear underneath the stage. I open my slime encrusted eyes and see the beaming faces of the puppeteers. Somehow a tail always ends up between my legs. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it looks a bit strange. We just want to tread that line.
   
   "Who's on that particular tail?" I ask Alec.
   
   "I am" he says.
   
   "You're a sick puppy." I say.
   
   Alec instructs another member of the team to be more intimate with his alien body part.
   
   "This is difficult for me," says the puppeteer. "I'm married."
   
   "Nice guys," says Alec, turning to me," need to be pushed to perversion"(Premiere: December 1997, p148)
9. SIGOURNEY WEAVER HAD A MINOR epiphany. She was hard at work on the set of "Alien Resurrection,'' having her fourth go-round as Ripley, the alien-busting heroine of science-fiction-film lore. A giant alien nest called the Viper Pit loomed above her. Technicians liberally applied a gross, gooey gel to her entire body, from her hair weave to her dominatrix-style combat boots. As she gingerly arranged her tall, lean frame into a slimy cavity full of flailing tentacles, the cosmic destiny of it all revealed itself. "This has been my goal,'' she joked. "Everything I've done in my career has built to this." (http://www.newsweek.com/you-say-you-want-resurrection-done-173498)