These appear to have become words to live and, in the case of some characters, die screaming by in Alien: Romulus, the seventh film in the venerated science fiction series. More than any other Alien continuation in the last 30 years, Romulus is laser-focused on recapturing the cosmic dread of the 1979 masterpiece from director Ridley Scott and the high-octane adrenaline of James Cameron’s radically different follow-up, Aliens (1986). It’s a deliberate return to why audiences recoiled in the first place at the sight of a dripping, drooling beastie who’s desperate to put something inside you.
“Just picking apart what makes those films in particular work so well in such different ways was really fun as a lover of film in general, but especially this franchise,” says Romulus’ leading lady, Cailee Spaeny. The impulse to serve both styles can lead to mornings where Spaeny is asked by the director what is the “indie movie version” of the scene they’re filming, and afternoons where she’s covered in blood and holding a quasi-flamethrower for a hero shot taken out of Cameron’s playbook.
“There’s a moment where I’m coming out of the elevator with the pulse rifle, and I’ve got two guys behind the camera with leaf blowers hitting me, and we’re really leaning into the ’80s drama of it,” she enthuses. “It’s amazing.” It’s also a homecoming for a franchise that’s traveled light years from its roots.
Origin of the Species
When we catch up with Alvarez, he’s at the finish line on Romulus. On this particular evening, he has just wrapped a round of press in Paris, and tomorrow, he’ll be back to Los Angeles, where he has one more day of sound mixing before the picture is locked. He likens it to an expectant mother in her ninth month of pregnancy. Or John Hurt moments before dinner on the Nostromo.
But then, the Alien movies have always loomed large in Alvarez’s mind. He was a shade too young to experience Scott’s haunted-house original during its first theatrical release (Alvarez was born in 1978), but he was there for the Aliens tidal wave in ’86, which in turn led to him watching Alien countless times at home. Alvarez even speaks fondly of more contentious entries in the series, be it Alien: Resurrection or how he got into debates on the Evil Dead set after the whole crew saw Prometheus over the weekend. “That’s a movie that clearly accomplished more than most movies ever do,” he insists.
Yet it’s always been about the original two entries when it comes to the Alien franchise, and now by extension, Alien: Romulus. Upon getting the gig, Alvarez sought out those who were there opening night in ’79 to better understand why the movie left such a scar on the cultural psyche. And Alvarez has attempted to instill some of those lessons into Romulus, even as he also hopes to make “a full meal” that’s fresh for xenomorph veterans and newbies alike.
