Alien: Romulus trailer is unrelenting horror with a side of fan service

Alien: Romulus, which premieres August 16, is advertising itself as taking “the phenomenally successful Alien franchise back to its roots.” The new trailer released on Tuesday definitely exemplifies that: there are claustrophobic spaceship hallways, a creature in somebody’s chest cavity, facehuggers hugging faces, a female protagonist with a pulse rifle who later comes face-to-face with a xenomorph. The trailer also exemplifies the work of writer-director Fede Álvarez (Don’t Breathe) in the unrelenting horror and gross body stuff that’s going on.

Per the film’s logline, “While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.” For some reason, traveling to this dangerous abandoned craft is the “only ticket out” of the youngsters’ current circumstances, though for some of them, that ticket is clearly one way. Rising star Caliee Spaeny plays our protag, Rain, alongside her “android foster brother” Andy (David Jonsson). “When her father was dying, he left Andy to be a kind of caretaker,” Álvarez recently told Empire magazine. “But Andy is a bit damaged and he’s an older model. So more than a surrogate father, he becomes a younger brother to her. And that was always the heart of the story: this relationship between the two… and how that relationship unfolds once shit hits the fan.”

The film gets its name from the craft that the group finds themselves on, the Renaissance Station, which is split into two sections, Remus and Romulus. Álvarez told Empire that the sets were designed to recall earlier entries to the franchise on purpose. “To ask an Alien fan to choose between them is a perverse question. So I thought, ‘How do I do both?’” He said. “There’s a moment where the characters are walking around areas familiar from the Nostromo. Then they cross through that building and on the other side: boom! You’re in a hallway that looks like Hadley’s Hope [from Aliens].”

Alien: Romulus also stars Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last Of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), and Aileen Wu. Álvarez co-wrote the screenplay with Rodo Sayagues. Ridley Scott, director of the original Alien as well as franchise entries Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, is on board as a producer. And for the record, Scott has already seen this new version and apparently told Álvarez “It’s fucking great.” That’s a pretty good endorsement!