It wasn’t long ago that we all thought the Alien franchise was dead. Ridley Scott’s prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant were ambitious, and personally I like them both, but they didn’t connect with audiences on a wider scale, and it seemed like nothing would happen with Alien for a long time, if ever. But then came horror maestro Fede Alvarez with Alien: Romulus (review here), a film set between the franchise classics of Alien and Aliens, that successfully makes the quiet of space scary again.
Alien: Romulus stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Isabela Merced, and more, and it follows young laborers who try to break free of the mining colony by scavenging a derelict outpost for parts. Of course, what they find is considerably more dangerous than a bunch of deactivated hardware.
The challenge for Alvarez, especially by placing his film between Scott and Cameron’s, was to stand out while paying respect to what came before. To do that, Alvarez leaned on his horror background, making the Xenomorph scarier than it’s been in years, and finding cool new ways to make the face-huggers and other creatures as fearsome as possible. Along with gorgeous practical effects and heavy attention to detail capturing the feel of those early films, Alvarez has found a way to make Alien: Romulus his own.
While at San Diego Comic-Con, I had the chance to spend a few minutes chatting with Fede Alvarez. This was a real treat for me. Alvarez talked about setting his film between Scott and Cameron’s and the anxiety of doing so. We also talked about the Xenomorph, one of the greatest movie monsters ever, and whether it gave him and the cast nightmares.
Alien: Romulus is in theaters now.
