Space is terrifying.
Monsters are terrifying.
Space Monsters are REALLY terrifying.
***MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD***
What happens when a group of young space colonists who, while scavenging a “derelict” space station as part of a plan for a better life, come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe (insert side-eye from The Predator). Welcome to Alien: Romulus, the seventh installment in the Alien franchise, which serves as a standalone story set between the events of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986).
I know what you are thinking…ANOTHER ONE! Yes, the well has not run dry; face it, this franchise, like the Xenomorphs themselves, don’t die easy—a fact our industrious space colonizers learn first-hand. Continuing the story, crafted by Ridley Scott and Dan O’Bannon*, we are brought into the place humans occupy in the Aliens Universe, something not fully explored in the other franchises. In this story, the ever-present Weyland-Yutani Corporation governs the lives of these colonizers, treating them as indentured servants to corporate masters who want to squeeze everything out of their “employees” they can. (Late-stage capitalism is a helluva drug). And when your life is work, struggle, and misery, it can’t go anywhere but up, right? Right? Alien: Romulus, or as I call it, Alien: Run B!tC#es, says hold my beer.
The franchise teaches us that space is not nice and largely does not like humans. Director Fede Álvarez‘s Alien: Romulus reminds us of this and shows that humans have no business touching stuff in space. More importantly, Álvarez understood the assignment: humans, terror, monster, more terror…in space. It’s a simple recipe that I will admit has been lost, in some parts, in the later franchises. This, however, gets to the core of what I loved about Alien. HOT TAKE: No disrespect to James Cameron and the Space Marines, ‘Aliens’ was not a true sequel. Romulus fulfills that hole for me.
No horror movie is complete without a motley band of unsuspecting vic—I mean, visitors. Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) leads this movie cast, a plucky colonizer who dreams of better worlds. The comparison to Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is both obvious and sometimes endearing. But like Ripley, Raine’s physical, mental, and emotional strength are tested as she strives to survive, along with her crew, the onslaught of a Xenomorph. Also in this struggle is Andy (David Jonsson), her brother, and a repurposed synth. If you remember the first movie, you know that it ends well. While these two show excellent chemistry, the remaining cast was not as fleshed out as characters beyond the odd factoid about them to make them seem like more than just story set pieces included meant to add to the tension and give us a body count. In truth, while they did not take away from the story, I was in my gleeful horror-fan mode, wondering how will the Xenomorph kill that unfortunate sod.
Visually, Álvarez does a brilliant job of paying homage to the original antithetic and moving forward. Still, not so far; it feels disconnected from the parent story, and that connection to the first movie is why you start to feel the hairs on the back of your neck tingle because you know what’s coming. Despite its place in the Alien Cinematic Universe (ACU)™ timeline, the movie does an excellent and often endearing shoutout to the other franchise movies, showing Álvarez’s appreciation and respect for the evolution of the world of our favorite Xenomorphs.
Overall, this movie is about terror and humans trying not to die. The tension is consistent, logical, and at times unsettling. Characters behave in a manner you expect when faced with the existential dread of a face hunger implanting eggs in your throat that will eventually explode out your chest. Sadly, for them, that will be the least of their worries.
Alien: Romulus in theaters August 16, 2024
* Ridley Scott directed the original ALIEN with the original writers being Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett.
