By Marc S. Sanders
To make an effective horror film requires the necessary scares to startle an audience, but it doesn’t stop there. The story has to work. Still, it doesn’t stop there. You also have to care about the characters of the piece.
I guess one out of three is not bad for a new installment in a nearly fifty-year-old science fiction/monster movie, horror franchise. However, with Fede Alvarez’ Alien: Romulus, I left wanting more.
I have no doubt I was the loudest, perhaps most frequent screamer in the Dolby theater last night. Knowing what I know about Alien, I still get terribly nervous when watching a picture of these grotesque-like creatures, originally designed by H. R. Gigar. The assortment of Xenomorphs in this film is a faithful treatment to what the monsters should look like. Teeth, slime, black skeletal frames with scaly limbs and tails. What these monsters do is another story. It is primarily the same old routine of the creatures from the other films. Their quiet behavior ahead of their ritual attacks leaves me very nervous and anxious. I’ve gotta scream at the screen to help me overcome what scare tactics Alvarez and his crew have in store for us.
Alien: Romulus follows a Michael Myers/Friday The 13th blueprint. In basic terms, a handful of twentysomethings board a deserted space station as a means to getting off a mining colony overseen by the franchise corporate antagonist Weyland/Yutani. An audience familiar with the franchise knows this is not going to go well, and soon will expect the clawlike facehuggers, phallic shaped chestbursters and fully developed aliens, aka Xenomorphs, to run around trying to slash, eat, cocoon and build up their population.
Upon attending a screening with my Cinemaniac pals, the guys will testify to my shock and horror at what popped out on screen. I was terrified for what was coming out of Fede Alvarez’ dark and disturbingly silent settings. I was nervous when the cast crawled through narrow crevices or stepped into various labs, only to get stuck behind a jammed door or commit a clumsy trip into knee high, unclear water. Cocooned bodies representing an aftermath of violent carnage sent a doomed message too. The atmospheric sets alone work well at being terrifying.
Yet, for all of these technical achievements in luridly dark scenic design, jump scare editing, gross looking attacks along with alien “deliveries” and terrifying pursuits and chases, my friend Anthony said it best. He didn’t care about one single character. Same for me. I can’t deny how accurate he is. Like a slasher movie, I could care less if any of the players lived or died. Even with a periodic countdown during the course of the film, I also didn’t care if they got away from the deserted ship. So, the suspense never sustained. I was only anxious for when the next monster was going to make an appearance. In the third act, many of the jump scares were nil and upstaged by machine gun shooting and acid (for blood) splashes.
I also didn’t care for the expository scenes either because the information presented was nothing new. Anything that this gang learns they are suddenly up against has been told to me in all of the other films. There’s some wink and nod material to salute the other pictures with famous line send ups and even one broad character salute. It’s fun for a moment but what about this movie and this story?
I was also quite bothered by the convenient “just made it out alive” encounters that the main character played by Cailee Spaeny survives over and over. Anytime danger was knocking at her door her means of survival were not consistent with the long-established fiction of the Alien science of it all. When I wasn’t screaming, I was asking myself, how is she getting away. That’s the script not respecting the story elements, the universe or what is presented to an audience, and what they clearly know after almost a dozen pictures.
None of the characters have a personality. One is Asian with a buzzcut, two are English, and one is pregnant. The only interesting portrayal is an android named Andy (David Jonnson) who is a sidekick “brother” to Spaeny’s character, and behaves like an autistic savant, until a change comes over him, causing him later to operate like HAL 9000. Jonnson is really good in this role, and it is unfair that his cast mates were not as fleshed out like most of the other franchise films depicted in portrayals by such actors Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton, Lance Henrickson, Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, and of course Sigourney Weaver. The characters in this new picture are entirely forgettable and carry no value.
Jump scares with things that come out of dark corners or when crusty hive like walls come alive only go so far. To effectively win over horror, I need to also care when the next victim is taken down, or about to go through a near death experience on an even playing field. Romulus comes up short in that department.
Alien: Romulus is decent, but not great as it opts to only think with one side of its brain primarily focused on sneaking up to shiver you in hopes that you’ll pee a little.
NOTE: I knew what not to expect out of this film. My wish was to see a book end to the last two films that Ridley Scott helmed (Prometheus and Alien: Covenant). Questions were presented within those films that seemed to promise answers with a later film installment that has yet to come to fruition. So, the production company seems to have abandoned what they started in response to lackluster box office revenue and a divisive audience response. Therefore, reinvention came into play once more. I was always on the enthusiastic side of the divide with those two films. I carry great appreciation for what was done with them, and I was eager for how a prequel trilogy (now remaining incomplete) would wrap up. Alas…
As well, at close to fifty years, if you’re going to keep this up, I believe it’s time to reveal more about the villainous puppet masters, namely “The Company” or to be more specific, Weyland/Yutani. It has always been supposed how people who work for them may be expendable. Researching and controlling weaponized biological organisms is the company’s main priority. Yet, how, who and why are these ideas being set in motion? Does anyone at the top question the company’s practices and look at the moral and ethics of their functions? Even the Marvel Cinematic Universe has approached these kinds of angles already. Star Wars as well. Regrettably after several decades though, the Alien franchise segues away from those perspectives. This is my take only of course. Yet, I think it’s time to show who else is performing within this house of horrors universe. Prometheus and Covenant were moving in that direction but sadly they seemed to run out of road.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 