The ghost sculpture was inspired by Giger's original design for the film Alien (directed by Ridley Scott in 1979), which improved the shape of the alien by eliminating useless pipes on its back, adding razor-sharp lion claws, and a tongue shaped like a spear to give the visual impact of a deadly "kiss". The whole work presents an elegant and attractive biomechanical aesthetic with a more organic design concept. The work also reveals the influence of H.P. Lovecraft's mythological system, Cthulhu Mythos, on Giger, whose first large book of pictures, published in 1977, was named after his collection of stories, Necronomicon, as shown in the book. The Book of the Dead has the dual meaning of death and immortality.