SAN DIEGO – Good news for anyone who has never had the pleasure of seeing terrifying xenomorphs, crazy facehuggers and gruesome chestbursters: No special preparation is necessary to enjoy “Alien: Romiulus.”
“Romulus” (in theaters August 16), the seventh film in the “Alien” series, is set between the first two films: Ridley Scott’s 1979 science fiction horror classic and James Cameron’s action-packed 1986 sequel “Aliens,” both of which starred Sigourney Weaver’s iconic Ripley.
“You don’t have to have seen the others. If you have, it’s a treat. If not, I’m jealous,” said screenwriter and director Fede Alvarez on Friday during a “Romulus” presentation at Comic-Con, the pop culture convention at the San Diego Convention Center.
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The latest “Alien” film centers on a group of young colonists (played by Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn and Aileen Wu) who stumble upon an abandoned space station, investigate the place and discover that it is full of murderous alien creatures.
Spaeny said Alvarez has “such a great feel for the language of horror. He knows the franchise like the back of his hand and approaches it with such care.”
Alvarez wanted to recreate the psychosexual weirdness of the early “Alien” films while exploring something the other films didn’t: a strong connection between the characters. “It’s really about being someone’s sibling. Would you die for a brother or sister, or would you be a coward?”
The filmmaker chose “new faces” for his cast, “people you wouldn’t have associated with any other character,” and created a tense atmosphere as the film progressed about what would happen to them.
“When you see the first film, you have no idea Sigourney would survive,” said Alvarez. “Here, you don’t know who’s going to die.”
That’s why Alvarez shot the film chronologically, so that when someone “died,” it was emotional and the remaining cast had to say goodbye to that actor. “We could all live through that story,” he said.
Watching films like Alien “forms your tastes and habits, even if the first film was a little before my time,” says Jonsson, who plays the android Andy. Playing a synthetic (or “artificial person,” to say “Alien” in politically correct terms) “is an incredible challenge for a young actor, to take on a role that has been painted so many times before. Fede let me clean the whole thing up and make it my own.”
Alvarez treated the Comic-Con crowd to some new – and seriously gory – clips, including a nasty bit involving a chestburster. He tried to use as many physical effects as possible in “Romulus” and carried them over into the presentation, where facehuggers scurried across the stage.
The best advice on how to escape one of these beasts? “Don’t be stupid. Just run,” said Fearn.
Jonsson had a run-in with one on set. In the film, his character does some “very cool” things, including picking up a facehugger by its tail and throwing it out of harm’s way. While filming one scene, Jonsson called for “the big boy” and threw the prop, but “it spun around and detached my retina,” he recalls. “We finished the day, I went and got some stitches, and it was fun.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Comic-Con 2024: ‘Alien: Romulus’ cast brings youthful vibe to new film
