The Alien franchise has a new entry in it’s beloved universe, Alien: Romulus. The film promises to bring the scares and eerie, space horror vibes of the first film. In order to accomplish that, Ridley Scott (taking on a producer role for the film) entrusted Uruguayan filmmaker, Fede Álvarez, who is known for his terrifying thrills with films such as Don’t Breathe and Evil Dead to take the reigns on the Alien film franchise.
I had the chance to speak with Fede Álvarez, and discuss what themes he was eager to tackle, the thought process behind his production design, and how Alien can blend between different genres.
The Alien films have always been incredible at discussing a variety of different themes and topics in the midst of all it’s sci-fi horror, I asked Álvarez what specific theme he wanted to focus on with Alien: Romulus.
“Well, the one of the aspects that made the first one at the time so unique, it still does, was that kind of psychosexual aspect of the film. That creature that Giger designed, H.R. Giger designed original creatures, was definitely going for that thing,” Álvarez answered. “It’s just that twisted aspect of it, that you’re looking at it and go, ‘What am I looking at there?’ It just, it just kind of tingles your brain in ways that you don’t even notice. That’s something that is very important about it. And we definitely went full on on that front with this film.”
Another aspect of Alien I was curious to hear Álvarez’s, thoughts on, was the variety in what genre the franchise can take on. I mentioned how the upcoming Noah Hawley show looked to be getting into the sci-fi elements of Alien with his upcoming show and Romulus appeared to be heavy into the horror. What avenue should the franchise commit to or can it be an open canvas of storytelling?
Álvarez, answered, “I think the beauty of this franchise is that it can be many things, and every movie kind of redefine it a little bit. Going from horror to action, horror to prison drama, it kept evolving and really taking it to pure science fiction at some point, with Prometheus. It’s always horror in all of them but I think it really depends on the filmmaker.”
Finally we touched on the avenues the first Alien film opened for filmmakers and why it’s so influential.
“There was nothing like it at the time, and the idea of taking something that actually was quite new, but also Star Wars had done it the year before. I feel like it’s Star Wars evil sister, right? It’s that movie that comes as an answer, but just puts a lot of kind of a perverse twist on it,” Álvarez said. “So there’s something about that that I think is very, very unique and and the creature itself is such a creation that no one had seen before anything like it, and the mystery of what the creature was, is what keeps you glued to the screen on that first film. And I think now it’s been long enough that there’s a there’s a younger generation that haven’t seen any of them, and they will come into this movie without knowing what to expect. And oh boy, we have something in store for them.”