“Alien: Romulus” is the first horror movie I went to see willingly. I was nauseous

I watched the new “Alien”, I didn’t die of a heart attack and although I watched it with interest and even some appreciation, I have mixed feelings after the screening. On the one hand, this film serves up an honestly macabre and full of twists carnage in nostalgic decorations in the climate of the first parts of the cult series. Since the action is set between the events of “The Eighth Passenger of the Nostromo” (1979) and “The Decisive Battle” (1986), it is a fairly obvious solution: the visual layer and the set design are set in the same raw aesthetics of glowing diodes, angular computers of a very large space tank. It has charm and evokes a slight smile, and in addition, watched on a large screen, it makes you think about what impression the first parts of the series must have made on the audience.

“Alien: Romulus.” Blood, toxic guts, and a nostalgic trip to space [RECENZJA]

It was a controversial idea [uwaga, SPOILER] using artificial intelligence to generate a character played by an actor who died a few years ago. It’s a nice nod to the franchise’s founding films, but at the very beginning the visual effects are so sluggish that they feel a bit artificial. Later on, it doesn’t jar as much. I’ll add here that viewers unfamiliar with the previous installments of the famous series can watch “Romulus” with peace of mind. They certainly won’t get lost in the plot, although they will miss some tidbits.

Exactly, the plot. Director Fede Alvarez thought it would be a good and fresh idea to make a slasher about teenagers in space. Yes, the group of protagonists here is a gang of teenage slaves of the Weyland-Yutani corporation, who will stop at nothing to escape the gloomy colony. Because they are forced to work dangerously in the mines, they have seen their entire families die there, and there is not even a shadow of a chance that they will finally be able to legally break free and see the sun with their own eyes. Dystopia in the version of existential depression squared. That is why, without much hesitation, they decide to plunder the deck of an abandoned space station to take from there cryo chambers that allow travel to a distant system. It just so happens that this station was abandoned for a reason. Our innocent sheep board the deck unaware of the danger and the bloody harvest begins.

I appreciate the creators’ ingenuity and commitment to presenting the most terrifying images with Freud’s disturbing and invariably phallic xeonomorphs as mindless murderers. Alvarez is a specialist in horror – he made such films as “The Evil Dead”, “Don’t Breathe” and “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” that were appreciated by viewers and reviewers. He can also organize an effective massacre in space. He wrote the script for the new “Alien” produced by Ridley Scott with Rodo Sayagues and it is clear that they put full force into creating the atmosphere and making things happen.

“Alien: Romulus”: In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

Here we have the opportunity to see the xenomorphs in almost every growth phase, and in each of them they are slimy, macabre, vulgarly ugly and exceptionally nightmarish. Even in the trailer it was clear that the way the stingray-like parasites attack people and force their tentacles down their throats is terrifyingly suggestive. On the big screen it looked so much that I felt nauseous. When our Aliens grow up, the shivers go down just looking at their metallic teeth and the spiky protrusions crawling out of their throats, but in the case of “Alien” this is a mandatory and obvious element. Making the xenomorph even more hideous than before is an art. Alvarez also allowed himself to experiment, the effects of which will probably haunt many people in their dreams for a long time. The last time I felt such disgust was when I tried to watch “Pan’s Labyrinth” and this monster appeared with eyes in its hands. Good thing I watched some John Carpenter and Hellraiser movies in the meantime, it helped ease the shock.

Alvarez also used sound very skillfully to build the atmosphere of horror – he elegantly played the absolute silence prevailing in space, so that at times you can actually hold your breath with the characters in the film. I have an irresistible impression that all normal people in such situations would simply be paralyzed with fear and that would be the end of the adventure. Here, however, the protagonists are determined to survive, so we are looking at something that resembles a combination of “Final Destination” and “Predator” in extreme conditions.

On the other hand, this time it bothers me a bit that I knew from the very beginning how it would all end. The carnage begins after about 15 minutes, and then you know: this one will die, that one will die, this one will prolong the agony, and this one will make such stupid decisions that it is not known how on earth she will survive for so long. Another thing is that I really liked only one character here – David Jonsson as the android Andy was great. He was the most interesting and best written character, and the rest is obvious cannon fodder. Heck, one of the characters is so unsympathetic that I was actually glad when he suffered a most deserved and painful death. The only likeable teenager who had something more to say had to die anyway, such are the laws of slasher logic. Unfortunately, I was perfectly indifferent to the fate of the main character, because although Cailee Spaeny is not a bad actress, she does not have the charisma of Sigourney Weaver.

“Alien: Romulus” is a solid but very predictable production. I feel that more energy was spent on technicalities and writing the most macabre scenes of spectacular deaths than on some script nuances and character psychology that would make us look at this massacre as an authentic drama of youth chased by a phallic monster, who so desperately wanted to experience a better life. Nevertheless, we get everything that should appear in “Alien” and it is realized at the highest technical level. This is not necessarily enough for “Romulus” to be something more than an extremely efficient and correct part of a larger franchise, but it is definitely a much better film than, for example, “Prometheus”. Is it worth taking the time to go to the cinema? I think that despite everything, it is definitely possible, because “Romulus” definitely makes the best impression on the big screen.