31 Days of Halloween: Alien Romulus

LOVE LETTER TO ALIEN FANS

I want to start by saying that if you loved the original Alien film, and its dark and claustrophobic atmosphere, you will also love ALIEN: ROMULUS. This is a pure love letter to Alien fans and cares truly about pleasing those fans. The Xenomorphs in my opinion have never looked better. It uses dark and tense spaces to put you on the edge of your seat, but also isn’t afraid to get jumpy and intense with its scares. Like the face huggers being fucking warriors in this movie chasing and attacking people more ruthlessly than ever. The presence of the xenomorph worries you in every setting and truly feel like no one is safe in this film.

CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS MATTER HERE

This film does one of the best jobs of any movie in the franchise to weave its characters together in dynamic relationships and situations that you actually believe in what is being shown on screen. Rain has a strong sympathy to Andy as if he was actually her brother. Andy’s performance is maybe the best of the whole film. He portrays the code switch perfectly also but you feel extreme sympathy for him as an android and also how he is treated badly by Bjorn for androids being the reason his mom is dead. Kay and Tyler and amazing in their roles and Kay being the vessel for the crazy fucking offspring was an amazing unexpected development for her character. Tyler feels like a badass and is the needed male figure aside Cailee, while also still allowing Cailee as Rain to be the primary star throughout. She is a BANGER in this film. She truly is on the rise with her latest work and this adds to it.

XENOMORPHS FEEL DANGEROUS AF IN ROMULUS

These Xenomorphs feel like the Aliens you would have in Alien Isosolation. Violent and true predators after the life on the ship. It feels more like a hunt for them when they get unleashed and all the characters are on their heels trying to be one step ahead and defend themselves. Until Rain decides to go balls to the wall to save Andy and face them head on. The look of them is incredible. Also we aren’t shown them early on, so the anticipation of the Xenomorphs showing up and wreaking havoc is electric. Rain battling with the Xenomorphs in the zero gravity scene was incredible too, amazing use of the acid blood in the scenes and they made sure every important Alien plot point was touched on to let you know the creators care greatly about putting a scary and intense Alien film on your screen

The ENDING… Like it or love it. WTF IS THAT?!

I know one of the original plans with the hybrid alien in Alien 3 was the give you a big what the fuck factor. The offspring in this film also achieved that. What the fuck was that thing?!? While I wanted the final face off to be with a xeno, I applaud the batshit craziness that ensued in the final act. From the offspring being born, to breastfeeding in a fucked up way that killed Kay, and then hanging on before being fucked up by Rain. I’ve heard plenty of people love the ending and plenty hate it, also wanting a Xeno to be the final kill in the movie. But this film made so much money we are bound to get a sequel to this. A job well done for this legacy sequel in ALIEN: ROMULUS. Exactly what horror needed at that time as well.

C. A. ROETHLE