Horror is about what it means to be alive. Horror wakes us from our cinematic reverie and tells us about the human condition. Horror operates between the threshold of life and death and tries to tell us what it’s like to cross over the veil. Horror is the most pure mode of cinematic storytelling. Horror is the broadest genre bucket wherein every other genre can live. Horror is why we’re here.

Alien is the most essential horror franchise; every Alien movie is a good movie. That’s a rule without exceptions. Alien (1979) is the purest distillation of horror, blending the aesthetically genius designs of H.R. Giger with Space Trucker sci-fi. Giger’s designs challenge us to think about the human physique melded with biomechanical synthetic elements. Ridley Scott double-dips, foreshadowing the android dreams of his Blade Runner (1982), while forever changing the course of horror aesthetics.

The rest can be efficiently mapped: Aliens (1986) is horror broadened into immaculate action filmmaking by the king of sequels, James Cameron. Alien³ (1992), despite deeply-misplaced studio interference, is the debut feature of David Fincher, who has defined the modern aesthetic of almost all American movies, and it begins with his industrial green-hued rejection of grayscale aesthetics, and gives us faster, deadlier Xenomorphs. Alien Resurrection (1997) enlists Jean-Pierre Jeunet to make a French Extremity body horror movie about birth and death, maybe the most daring thing the fourth entry of any franchise could ever be. Prometheus (2012) is perhaps our greatest horror origin movie, as Ridley Scott reasserts the philosophical grounding of the series — an origin movie about humanity itself and the virtues and dangers of seeking forbidden knowledge. And then there’s Alien Covenant, a reflection on the ethics of the creation and destruction of life. All of these movies are not just good but essential stories about what horror has to tell us about birth and death.

Alien Romulus, then, is an interquel resting between Alien and Aliens that captures the best components of the two best Alien movies, and thus, two of the best horror movies ever made, which feels downright heroic for director Fede Álvarez. Once again, the franchise seems to be the birthing ground for where horror is going. Álvarez deftly threads the needle between all of the above movies in the franchise while reinstating the earliest aesthetics and themes of the movies. This recentering of theme and aesthetic function is richly realized by practical effects and an eye for the confined spaces aboard the ships where it takes place.

The format feels distinct in one way: this feels like a perfect realization of a slasher horror movie. Alien was always something — excuse the term — more ‘elevated,’ going above and beyond traditional slasher constructs. But here, Álvarez has captured the exact working formula of those aesthetics and motifs from his early movies like Evil Dead (2013) and Don’t Breathe (2016) and brilliantly reincorporated them into the world of the Alien movies.

We’re dealing with a younger crew, closer to the characters who would appear in a teen horror movie and the slasher approach follows a traditional Final Girl setup, one that the original Alien provides the most empowering example of. It works terrifically and sets into motion a totally new version of this classic story about some young mining scavengers boarding an old Weyland-Yutani ship crawling with Xenomorphs. Raine Carradine (Cailey Spaeny) and her synthetic pal Andy (David Johnsson) must work together to navigate these derelict space stations swarming with facehuggers and Xenomorphs. In series tradition, Spaeny proves to be one of the strongest Final Girls in all of horror movies and gives an indelible performance. Her crew are also great, but Johnsson’s register between android and human is especially empathetic.

Alien Romulus, like all entries before it, is a fascinating exploration of life and death as characters hang in the balance between these liminal spaces of forsaken space stations, crossing the boundaries of human understanding into the great terrifying unknown. The horror works at every level. Atmosphere is thickly laid on, and the cinematography of Galo Olivares (who exceptionally shot Roma in 2018), perfectly suits Álvarez’s vision; the duo are perfectly at home together visually.

Horror movies live and die by their visual effects, makeup, set decoration, and whatever computer-generated imagery is used. Romulus looks astounding on all levels, with only a couple odd computery-looking segments. Especially the oozing acid of the aliens and bile and giblets floating through the station help to sell the aliens as organic but also the Xenomorph and facehugger designs remain perfectly expressive of sex, biomechanical human physique, and our struggle with our own image as Specimens of God.

Every good element of past Alien movies is pulled into this one. This is an efficient horror movie that does not evade the genre’s trappings at all, but instead, doubles down on the fundamental and defining layers of good Slasher horror filmmaking. It’s an immaculate result. The rule is proven yet again: all Alien movies are good movies. And this is cohesively one of the best of those.

9/10