Alien: Romulus
The ninth chapter in the sci-fi horror franchise takes the original back to its roots – in the process producing an express ride of nerve-shredding intensity.
The invisible scream: Cailee Spaeny
Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios.
Horror has a face – and it drools. The Alien is too perfect a living organism ever to disappear from the universe, let alone the multiplex. While the series has gone through multiple transformations, with considerable success on occasion, only Alien: Romulus feels like a genuine sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1979 masterpiece. It not only retains the same sense of dread, but, like the original, it inhabits a milieu that is both shopworn and unfamiliar, an environment that is not so much futuristic as, well, alien. And it immediately sets the tone.
Whereas the other sequels followed the new technology available to them – even Ridley Scott’s own prequels Prometheus and Alien: Covenant appeared more scientifically advanced than what lies ahead – Romulus has a retro, industrial feel to it in keeping with the first film. The main difference here is the youthfulness of the characters, in particular Cailee Spaeny’s Rain Carradine, who looks like she should still be in school.
Rain is actually a mine worker, and an orphan, who has adopted an android with special needs, Andy, whom she refers to as her brother. Her colleagues call him “damaged goods,” a “fake person,” although Andy himself prefers the term “artificial human.” As portrayed by the London-born David Jonsson (Rye Lane), Andy must rate as the most sympathetic synthetic creation since WALL-E. And where the movie also echoes the ingenuity of the original is not to reveal the face of the alien until much later on, preserving us from the hackneyed prologue that has now become de rigueur in horror films. And to underscore the behaviour of the original characters, Kay (Isabela Merced) is even shown smoking a cigarette!
At first, it’s hard to comprehend what is going on (the retrieval of an organic mass from the space ship Nostromo) – which really doesn’t matter as director Fede Álvarez is rightly more concerned with authenticity than speaking down to his audience. In time, we will pick up the basics as our protagonists discover what they’ve let themselves in for (having broken into a derelict spacecraft). The Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Álvarez has already proved his chops with Don’t Breathe and The Girl in the Spider’s Web, but here he excels himself with material ripe for reinvention. The alliance of the childlike Andy and Rain makes for an unusual partnership that we really care about, while all three male leads, Jonsson, Archie Renaux and Spike Fearn, use their own English dialect (which is novel for a big-budget Hollywood movie). In addition, the computer animation and stomach-turning, gynaecological prosthetics are second-to-none, Jake Roberts’ split-second editing is masterful and Benjamin Wallfisch’s haunting, blaring score just ups the ante even further. In a year congested with trite, tiresome horror films, Alien: Romulus reminds us how terrifying a space the cinema can be.
[P.S. Considering the explicit gore, bad language and high intensity, it’s extraordinary that the film was bestowed with a 15 certificate in the UK.]
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu, and a reconstituted Ian Holm.
Dir Fede Álvarez, Pro Ridley Scott, Michael Pruss and Walter Hill, Screenplay Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, Ph Galo Olivares, Pro Des Naaman Marshall, Ed Jake Roberts, Music Benjamin Wallfisch, Costumes Carlos Rosario, Sound Lee Gilmore and Chris Terhune.
Scott Free Productions/Brandywine Productions-20th Century Studios/Walt Disney.
118 mins. USA/UK/Hungary. 2024. UK and US Rel: 16 August 2024. Cert. 15.
