2024 has been a poor year for horror movies fans. Even though tons of horror movies have come out so far, few have been able to meet expectations from fans. Movies such as Imaginary which only got a score of 4.7/10 from audiences, or Tarot, another flop which only got a 4.8. Studios have been pumping out horror movies all year long and most of them have not been the best. I love the Alien franchise and was happy to hear that they were reviving the series, but I was not thrilled. I thought it would be a pointless cash grab, desecrating the memory of the original movies but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised. I entered the theater not expecting much and left wanting more.

It started off incredibly slow and I was honestly rolling my eyes. Our story kicks off with our main characters getting together with an old acquaintance who offers them a supposedly easy job for easy money, a story we’ve all heard at least once before. I was not, however, disappointed by our crew. They’re all based on pretty generic character archetypes, the rebellious idiot, the timid nice girl, the tough-as-nails loner, they all sound pretty generic, right? And they probably would be if it wasn’t for the amazing actors playing them. Even though I was initially disappointed with the plot of our story, by the end of the movie all of my initial doubts were now replaced with awe. All thanks to a great combination of an incredible cast, amazing visuals, and an excellent director which come together to form a stunning and terrifying film.

I have to start by talking about the amazing cast who managed to take characters who sound boring on paper and turn them into incredibly entertaining and lifelike characters. Ironically, the showstopper would have to be Andy, who’s not lifelike at all, but a synthetic robot. Andy is played by David Jonsson who did an excellent job portraying a machine, switching between being stone cold at times and then like a child stuck in an adult’s body. This makes sense since he’s a robot and also the younger brother of our other main character and final girl Rain, portrayed by Cailee Spaeny. We don’t get to know much about any of the characters, but the actors perform their actions very well, which makes up for their lack of background. Plus, the movie is called Alien, not human. I came to look at cool aliens, not hear the sob stories behind the victims.

The visuals were great when it came to literally everything. Facehuggers? Both disgusting and realistic! There’s a scene in which our crew gets chased by an entire horde of facehuggers all scurrying and clamoring over each other. This scene had my heart thumping in my chest with a strange mixture of fear and excitement. I couldn’t help but admire how realistic they looked crawling through the dark corridors, which were eerily beautiful. The alien itself was a practical effect similar to the original movie. In the original Alien movie, it was an actor in a costume, and this time around it’s an animatronic digitally enhanced in post. So not totally purist but I don’t really care! I love practical effects and the alien still looks terrific on screen.

I expected that most of the aliens and facehuggers would be CGI, like most films these days, but I’m quite pleased with the direction that this movie took with practical effects. Even when it came down to the “offspring” at the end of the film, an alien-human hybrid played by Robert Bobroczkyi. For his debut movie, this as utterly terrifying. The hybrid is birthed in an already grotesque and shocking scene but is immediately outdone by the hybrid towering over the protagonist at a whopping 7 feet tall. 

The director Fede Álvarez has a spotty record when it comes to directing, He directed both Don’t Breathe movies, the first of which was received pretty well by viewers. He also directed the 2013 Evil Dead Reboot and the 2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre which weren’t as well received. I had doubts about him directing Alien, but I retracted that statement and replaced it with praise. It’s clear that he put a lot of care into it and that he himself is a big fan of the Alien franchise who knows what others would want. There are interviews in which he speaks about the previous Alien movies and their influence on his directing. Álvarez even mentions that he played the game and found it so terrifying that it’s what led him when directing the horror aspects of the movie. He even includes easter eggs from both the game and old movies for fans to spot.

I wouldn’t exactly say that Alien Romulus is a movie that can be enjoyed by the whole family. It’s not for the easily frightened or the squeamish, but it is an incredible movie for horror fans and fans of the Alien franchise as a whole. The movie is an excellent stand-alone film and it can be enjoyed by horror movie fans even if they’re not familiar with the franchise. However, If you are an Alien fan, you absolutely owe it to yourself to go see this movie. Alien Romulus is such an amazing return to the original formula of the Alien movies and it features so many callbacks and references: to the original Alien, to some of the games, and even to prequel films like Prometheus and Covenant, which seem like they’re going to play a bigger part in the story going forward. If I were to rate Alien Romulus on a scale of 1 to 10  I would give it a 9. It’s a great horror movie, a great sci-fi movie, and a great addition to the Alien franchise, but I know that this isn’t the best that they can give us and I think they can only go up from here.