'Alien: Romulus' Takes the Franchise Back to Its Haunted-House Basics 

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• Courtesy Of Disney
• Forty-five years after the series opener, toothy xenomorphs continue to terrorize unwary humans.

Like its title organism, the Alien franchise has proved remarkably tough to kill, in part due to its shape-shifting ability. The original 1979 blockbuster and its tonally distinct but equally beloved 1986 sequel gave way to entries with diminishing returns. After the millennium, prequels Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) took the story in speculative directions that many fans didn't welcome. The eventual follow-up, Alien: Romulus, was slated for a streaming-only release until director Fede Alvarez (Don't Breathe) pushed successfully for a theatrical one. That gamble paid off, with the R-rated science fiction horror film topping the box office last weekend.

The deal

During the interval between the first and second films, a probe from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation discovers the wreckage of the ship USCSS Nostromo and retrieves the remains of the xenomorph that Ellen Ripley flushed out the air lock in Alien.

Meanwhile, young Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) toils in a Weyland-Yutani off-world mining colony, counting the days until she can leave the grueling work that killed her parents and split for a better planet. She won't go without her "brother," a synthetic human named Andy (David Jonsson), whom her dad rescued from the trash and programmed to spout dad jokes.

Then the corporation pulls a double-cross that makes Rain desperate enough to sign on to a daring plan. She, Andy and her friends will escape in cryostasis pods salvaged from a derelict space station, which is about to collide with the planet's rings and become toast.

The young people will discover that, like so many other valuable company properties, that space station was abandoned for a reason.

Will you like it?

If Alien: Romulus is your first encounter with the franchise, don't worry about being lost. Back in 1986, Pauline Kael called Aliens "a very big 'Boo!' movie," and that description applies equally well here. Anyone who's seen a horror flick about teens exploring an abandoned prison or asylum by flashlight has grasped the basics of Alien: Romulus. The difference lies in the setting (space!) and the creativity of the monsters that leap from dark corners to startle bloodcurdling screams from the mostly interchangeable characters.

Why are the androids always the most interesting "people" in these movies? Rain is a likable heroine, and her status as a downtrodden prole resonates in the universe of these films, which feels more anticapitalist now than ever. (In this entry, instead of seeking the alien for weapons research, Weyland-Yutani aims to build super-workers.) But plodding, soft-spoken Andy is the one we really care about — Andy, whom everyone but Rain views as disposable. As circumstances force hostile upgrades on him, Jonsson puts the character through seamless transformations without missing a beat.

The creature effects are still scary after all these years, even if the life cycle of the xenomorph makes less sense with each film. While the parasitic larvae took their time gestating in Alien, here they must do so almost instantaneously to keep up with the pace of Romulus, the bulk of which occurs in real time.

The movie has its awe-inspiring moments. The opening tracking shot in space has an unsettling soundtrack of dead silence, while the reveal of a passage festooned with xenomorph cocoons suggests a deadlier version of something Tim Burton might dream up. Mostly, though, the perils come too thick and fast for us to enjoy the scenery. Cowriters Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues have designed an effective maze of horrors, in which every feature of the setting — such as artificial gravity that cycles on and off — eventually proves to have a purpose.

As part of its return to the basics of the franchise, Alien: Romulus references its predecessors at every turn. When we discover that one of the young people (Isabela Merced) is pregnant, we know to expect body horror, given the franchise's fondness for reproductive imagery. (This is your trigger warning!) It makes sense for the space station to house an android science officer who is a replica of Ash from Alien, even if the digital "resurrection" of late actor Ian Holm is creepy. (Daniel Betts voices the character.) It makes less sense for Andy to parrot a classic line from Aliens — a low point for the movie.

As diverse as the Alien films have been, they all end up in the same place eventually: with humans getting a bloody lesson in the impossibility of controlling the uncontrollable. The horror always overrides the speculative elements. Even the visually stunning Prometheus, with its religious and philosophical musings, was ultimately just a twist on a "cursed tomb kills all the archaeologists" movie. And that's fine! With its weird (even nonsensical) science and plenty of "Boo!" scenes, Alien: Romulus is true to the legacy.

If you like this, try...

Alien and its sequels (1979-2017; all on Disney+ and Hulu, most also rentable): C'mon, you want to revisit them, don't you? Aliens is also on Max.

Prey (2022; Hulu): It's a pity this Predator sequel went straight to streaming (the fate that Alien: Romulus escaped), because the showdown between a Comanche warrior woman and an alien bounty hunter makes for great popcorn cinema.

"Silo" (10 episodes, 2023; Apple TV+): If what draws you to the Alien franchise is the grimy futuristic aesthetic, try this dystopian series based on Hugh Howey's science fiction novels, in which a whole society lives imprisoned in the titular structure.