Given the series’ roots in sci-fi horror, it’s sort of odd that it’s taken this long for someone to try to bring Alien back to its original (and massively successful) conception as a haunted house in space. The guy who finally did it is Fede Alvarez, maybe the purest horror director the Alien series has ever had; he previously made the Evil Dead remake and the first Don’t Breathe.
Alvarez’s take on Alien: Romulusseems pretty simple: What if there was another Alien movie a lot like the original one? And what if there was a brave woman at the center of the adventure (Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny) and she’s trapped in the middle of the universe with nowhere to run when a xenomorph gets loose on her ship?
Take a look at the creepy trailer for Alien: Romulus below:
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Romulus is the first Alien movie since Disney acquired the property via its merger with 20th Century Fox. The final Fox Alien movie was 2017’s Alien: Covenant, the second of original Alien director Ridley Scott’s two prequels to his own work; 2012’s Prometheus was the other. Those movies had their share of gloppy monster scares, but they were also about where the xenomorph originally came from, plus philosophical musings on the origins of all life in the universe. Scott delighted in comparing various species: Man, alien, and android. And, yeah, occasionally people got ripped to pieces by aliens too.
There might be more going on in Romulus, but Disney’s not selling it that way; they’re selling it as “The Alien sequel that’s scary as hell.” Here is the film’s official synopsis:
“Alien: Romulus” takes the phenomenally successful “Alien” franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.
Alien: Romulus is scheduled to open in theaters on August 16.
