Nights of Horror: Alien: Romulus (2024)
Alien: Romulus (USA, 2024)
I had such high high hopes, and I had big big dreams because Fede Álvarez has spoiled me so well til now. I want to go back to before I saw it, when I was innocent and loved it already, not knowing anything.
There was next to no tension in this film save for one part. I felt tension, real tension, the first time the anti-gravity cycle happened. I thought, "Oh shit grab something. You don't know how long this will last. Someone's gonna break their back, and we're gonna have to drag back a paralyzed player. Cause this feels like a game."
And then, as soon as nothing bad happened, I stopped feeling tense. It felt super safe. The whole movie felt zero stakes. Even the scene with all the facehuggers melting out of their cryo-stasis and jumping all over the place like a bunch of Compsognathus babies in Jurassic Park: The Lost World, I was like “Oh, well you GOTTA let the artificial person reboot, don’t worry, nobody will get hurt until then.” See how we don’t call him a synthetic? Very mindful. Very demure.
Also: heating that room up to get past them? What is this? Splinter? Kane got “got” in a room that was basically a sauna. You’d think these babies know their way around heat. I’m sure a scientist can explain it to me in a way I won’t laugh at. My DMs aren’t open, do it in a comments section somewhere.
I was fine with the majority of the movie after that, even the appearance of a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 (which were always a bit twitchy), which seemed to piss off a lot of fans. I liked it. I thought the actor’s voice performance was beautifully done, and the tasteful CGI paid respect to Ian Holm without being gauche.
I liked that the plot moved right along, showcasing Álvarez’ obvious love for Alien Isolation, a game that still gives me nightmares. I didn’t care too much about anyone, though I did find reasons to like Rain and the pregnant girl. The sadist in me says it’s because of their perseverance in the wake of suffering beautifully, but honestly, I don’t think anyone really suffered enough in this movie. I mean, emotionally they did, but I wasn’t attached enough to anyone to resent their passing.
Not like I mourn the loss of every marine in Aliens. Not like I mourn every crew member of the Nostromo. And maybe it’s 25 years of psychosocial friendship I’ve cultivated with characters I have given 25 years of thought to, but…. It was always there. I immediately cared about the crews in Alien and Aliens.
(You’re not supposed to care about anyone in Alien 3, or, you’re supposed to have complicated feelings about it if you do. Charles Dance and Charles S. Dutton, I guess. I think you’re supposed to be just as afraid of them as you are afraid for them, but that’s a different review.)
I felt like there was an insistent “YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THIS” vibe that rang false to me about this group of child miners trying to escape their shitty life. Like, yeah, I can sympathize, but I feel like you’re trying to force a Spielberg level of familial warmth out of a cold rock with no indigenous life. And I was okay with not caring about them, because this series has always been about unpacking that big picture for me anyway. And the fact that xenomorphs and facehuggers have been a consistent source of material from which I can derive that schlick schlick schlickety ever since I learned I was into cumflation, alien impregnation, and tentacles. Don’t buy me an ovipositor, I just like the videos.
But let’s talk about the movie!
A lot of people keep referring to THAT scene, and I really thought my fetishes were about to become mainstream, and then I’ve found out that not only is everyone not nutting to the thing I think is hot, but they are all scared of different things. They’re AFRAID of THAT scene, and everyone is talking about a DIFFERENT scene.
And what makes me really happy is that you can say the exact same statement about Fede Álvarez’ other movies too. Evil Dead has a few THAT scenes. And I know which one I’m talking about, and you know which one you’re talking about, and mine is probably living rent free in my mind for a very different reason. Same goes for Don’t Breathe. Less so that one than for the two horror entries, but it was still worthy of a medium shameful panty change.
I don’t JUST watch these movies to learn how hard my nipples can get though, I’m also here for the scientific and philosophical implications of what it means to try and harness the perfect organism. What it means to be human. What it means to an artificial person, when you say they’re not a person. That theme is better explored in Prometheus and Covenant (which definitely deserved the conclusion to David’s story) ……
And depending on who you talk to, Prometheus and Covenant aren’t exactly canon, but if Ridely Scotch says it is, then it is, right? And he cosigned on all of this, and took away Fede’s control on some parts, they had to have been that fake ass wannabe Spielberg trash, right? (I’m not saying Spielberg is trash, I’m saying trying to copy him belongs a la poubelle). Fede wouldn’t have tried to make me care about Bowl Cut. Fede wanted me to hate Bowl Cut as much as he wanted me to hate every groan-inducing throwback line he taught Andy.
Oh, Bowl Cut, you’re a dick for the entire first act just so we can prove how Andy knows to use “bitch” in a sentence? I do not like you. And I laughed when you hurt your hand the first time, and I laughed again when you hurt your hand the second time. And I laughed when you put your violet wand cattle prod in the pupal stage acid drypalis walussy mound thinking you were gonna do sumn because I love nothing more than viciously rewarded hubris, but I DO NOT THINK YOU SUFFERED ENOUGH.
Bowl Cut’s death was like Simon Birch’s birth: an anticlimactic sneeze.
I hated most of the use of acid blood in this film. Sadly. I want to viscerally worry about acid blood. I really do. That shit ate through several layers of flooring in Alien. I am afraid of acid blood eating its way through the hull and causing the whole shebang to implode.
I was not afraid of it in this movie because it might as well have been Flubber, the way it just harmlessly floated around the anti-gravity field by the GALLON, not hitting the walls, not melting through the flooring, not filling the air with caustic smoke, and most importantly NOT burning Rain. She should have been dogmeat. It was supposed to be a gauntlet, and she emerged without a scratch. She should have at the very least been cut to shreds (TO SHREDS I SAY) by the twenty-odd carapaces of the xenomorphs she just shot up to GET all that blood in the air! You mean to tell me those bodies just vanished? You JUST shot them, where are they? She should have been in bumper to bumper traffic with acid-blood-slicked jagged edged pointy boney shells of twitching, hissing, wounded and dead dragons. Fucking silly. Foolishness.
I reiterate: NOT ONE DROP HITS THE WALLS?? Not ONE DROP HITS HER?? WHY?! MAGIC?!!
Subject change:
Pregnant Dora the Explorer did alright despite waking up feeling like shit and having to immediately go into triaging her friend who appears to be having a seizure. I've woken up next to someone having a seizure, I'm sure you have too. So, I can’t fault her for acting as she did, she did her best knowing what she knew, which was nothing.
And I can’t fault her for thinking that the mystery injection might save her life in a pinch. (Some people think this is THE scene. Mkay.)
It’s not an unpopular reaction, I laughed out loud at the giant Lurch podbaby. Giant Lurch podbaby was awkward as hell and one of the funniest reveals in a movie in years. The whole theater laughed.
Hey, you know how everyone hated the humanoid hybrid in Resurrection?? Guess WHAT! I actually loved the Offspring, I laughed, I wouldn’t want to be chased by it, I did laugh though. Considerably more than I laughed at Dren’s final form in Splice. (Same podbaby, different goo, not nearly as hot.)
And not a David in SIGHT But here, have an inexplicable engineer hybrid from a movie a lot of people hated! (I didn't hate Prometheus, I saw that thing three times in the theatre, because I really liked the transhumanism themes in the sci-fi films of the early 2010s.)
Hey Prometheus haters - Remember the c-section scene? Y’all are scared of pregnancy. That’s what all of this is about, men being afraid of pregnancy, that’s why it was so important that Kane be the host in Alien, it’s something you don’t want inside you forcing something big and thick and squishy and sexy down your throat and leaving something special there, you’re terrified. By the way, have a pod person. And no Veronica Cartwright. An ALIEN movie with a big tall POD PERSON and NO Veronica Cartwright in this prison on planet bullshit.
Gallon of amniotic acid just HANGING OUT IN THE POD. A POD FULL OF ACID LIKE MOSES IN HIS BASKET JUST SITTING THERE. Sloshing around. DJ, play Bobby Darin cause splish splash, I was NOT eating through the hull. No big deal.
Oh, NOW the cable has enough angle to pull the fourth lever to what, blow the ending out of the goddamn air lock? Right as the station is crashing into the solid as stone ring that surrounds this planet, that’s not like an asteroid belt but more like a circular saw blade, like a dang Langolier ready to erase all this but not SO fast our sole survivor can’t get away with exactly enough fuel to get to the place where they won’t let her take her artificial brother?
She does know, like she’s known all along, because it was a secret she kept from him for the sake of saving his feelings, his Flowers for Algernon feelings, because he DOES have feelings, but will anyone care about that, where they’re going? They’re just going to take him away from her and deactivate him, they have to know that, right? Maybe they’re counting on that. Okay that makes it better for me. His prime directive is to do what’s best for them BOTH though, so... wow, I almost felt something and then I lost it.
I was SO excited. And then I was just steadily let down the more I could smell Ridley Scott's toddler sticky little nub hands all over it. I left underwhelmed and bummed. I just wish Fede Álvarez had been given a chance to make the film he wanted to make. I wanted the tension, I wanted the brutal pay-offs. I wanted what I have gotten from him twice already, but in a universe I know and love inside and out. I wanted RELENTLESS.
I'm not mad at Fede. He did his best, and I could smell his sweat, ever so faintly. This movie should have been sweatier. With more close ups of hands. More fingers pushing buttons, zipping up coveralls, clicking buckles, slicking back greasy hair, slapping cold water onto hot necks. It’s about the visceral.
One of the best aspects of the Alien/Blade Runner/Predator universe is its tactile nature. Everything feels sweaty, dirty, lived-in, touchable. It feels real and gross and metallic and stinky. It needs to be EVERYWHERE. It wasn’t everywhere here. I felt it in fits and starts. I felt it on the mining colony, but not on Romulus itself. I felt it when we found Rook, but not when we lost Boyfriend. I felt it when Bowl Cut stabbed the walussy, but not when shocky head xenoboi got within kissing range. And I DEFINITELY did not feel it in the acid blood gauntlet that should have given me nightmares but barely put our lead character in peril at all.
Sidebar, I’m far too obsessed with the world building to go too much into the performances for any of the human characters. Rook was great, and so was Simple Jack John Boyega. I liked when he got his upgrades, and it did tug at my heart strings (A LITTLE BIT) when he was afraid to lose them.
BUT I will say, as a connoisseur of facehugger porn, I got exactly what I wanted in THAT scene, that 14 inch long, 6 inch around ovipositor getting slurped out of Bald Girl's throat. Like, put it back iiiiiinnnnnnnnn amirite?? Get another one downstairs! I’ve got three holes, y’all, don’t hold out on me. Three little monsters bursting out of me all at once, singing in three part harmony, giving me the sweet death I deserve? Fuck outta heah. Let me die dribbling caustic cum all over the floor, happy it ain’t eating through the hull, asking “What’s that burning sensation, Jack Kevorkian? My imminent demise? More like Gimme More-kian hiyooooooo!”
I should have been born a spider. Charlotte knew what was up. Sing a song, get mercilessly eaten by your kids. (Maybe that’s why I love Alien Resurrection. I’d be bleeding out, calling them beautiful butterflies before they took my head clean off.)