Alien: Romulus Reminds Me Horror is Good (Review)
Foreword
I believe the problem, which is an issue for fictional media as a whole, is that horror relies heavily on the unexpected. If you've ever seen John Carpenter's Halloween, you've seen every slasher flick. If you've seen The Exorcist (I haven't. Be nice) you've seen every procession movie. If you have past experiences to draw on, it deadens the paranoia that I crave from horror. The best ones linger with me. I am desperate to jump at shadows and to have my intrusive thoughts picture the threat lurking just out of view. Unfortunately, so few pieces of media have accomplished that false sense of danger in me. To be clear, if I don't achieve that delightful paranoia that does not mean I dislike the content. For example, I don't recall ever fearing the Jigsaw killer from the SAW franchise but I adore that, at several times, train wreck of a series.
Alien: Romulus is the closest a new (dare I say mainstream) movie has come to instilling the lingering sense of morbid curiosity I am desperate for. I've yet to jump at the shadows moving out of the corner of my eye, but I've developed such a fascination with the Xenomorph that several days after seeing the film, I'm still thinking about it.
Disclaimer: I saw this in theaters and it's been a week (two? What is time anyway?) since I've watched it. Everything here is dependant on my questionable memory.
Her father, who is a character I would love to see explored in a future film, left behind an Android named Andy (it took me a bit longer to laugh at that than I'd like to admit). We've seen countless Androids in the Alien series and Andy is certainly different. It's possible he is a representation for neurodivergent folks, particularly autistic, but done right and devoid of typical tropes. Andy is not the same cold, calculating and conniving bot we've seen before. Instead, he has a charming obsession with corny Dad jokes and a deep concern with Rain. We know that Andy used to belong to Weyland-Yutani but was repurposed by Rain's dad and reprogramed with the primary directive of "Do what's best for Rain". We never do learn how Papa Rain obtained Andy or how he reprogrammed him; not that it is needed.
Rain is denied permission to leave the colony, having her required worked hours changed to something that'll take her decades (I think?) to complete. Defeated, she and Andy return to their living quarters where they are met with old associates that for the life of me I couldn't name. There's the leader guy, the asshole guy, the badass pilot girl, and the sweetheart girl. Unfortunately, our five man band consists of these sterotypes and not much further character development.
The leader guy explains that they have a plan to leave the colony, steal some cyrosleep fuel from the company station we saw in the opening and that just floated into orbit, and make a several year long journey to a planet that Rain has literal dreams about. Rain has some legitimate concerns. Mainly, the only way for them to gain access to the cyrofuel is by using the Weyland-Yutani clearance that is programmed into Andy. Rain does not trust that this will be a safe trip for Andy, but reluctantly agrees after some convincing.
They take a small passenger vessel (I swear they stole it, but I may be mistaken) and dock with the station without issue. They begin their mission and, since this is an Alien movie, eventually encounter a Xenomorph that they must deal with.
The rest of the film continues, in some regards, as you can probably guess. We're now in the meat of the horror and I am going to refrain from continued explanation of the plot so to avoid spoilers. I went into the film without any knowledge of the previous films (I saw Alien and Prometheus prior to Romulus) and I think my experience was better overall for it.
To highlight the many good aspects, this film is scary. There were several moments that had me cringe away or brace myself. I immediately felt unease when the characters had to pump a lever on a door to pressurize a room; thanks to the connection I was able to make with the game Alien: Isolation. This unease continued throughout the film as it utilized the Xenomorph exactly how I wanted them to.
The Xenomorph is the perfect predator. It is hauntingly intelligent and able to problem solve by using it's environment. It's faster than the average human, it's stronger than the average human, and our protagonist have no way to reliably try to kill it. The monster that Rain and crew face is the exact monster I face in Isolation and I adore the film for it. There is one gripe, however. Near the final act of the film, the Xenomorph behaves in a way that is definitely questionable. It might be a limitation of the film medium, where time doesn't always flow at the rate you'd expect. Without spoiling too much, there's a scene where the Xenomorph could have killed someone but seems to take it's time in doing so. This could be because we're shown what other characters are doing at the same time, so we cut away and it feels drawn out but actually isn't. But other than that single gripe, the Xenomorph is done very well here and I appreciate the scares it was able to bring.
The set design is fantastic. It fits the overall vibe of the Alien universe and series veterans will feel right at home with it. Nothing, from what I remember, is hidden in darkness to the point where we can't see anything that's happening. The visuals are great and I greatly appreciate that there isn't any gross out horror. To be clear, there is some excellent body horror, but so many films make the mistake of trying to make the characters do gross things. There's no excess vomit or human waste and I thank the film for that greatly. There is a ton of blood though, but that's a good thing.
I do have some major complaints with the film. Unfortunately, there are some tropes the movie utilizes. If you've seen any Alien film prior, you can guess some of the things that are going to happen. The biggest issue I've had is the supporting cast. They are a bit one note, really no one in this film goes through an arc but arguably that's unnecessary.
I dislike the asshole guy so much in this film and not necessarily because of the character we got. More to the point, I hate this character type. I'm not sure why horror films, especially slashers - which is what Alien ultimately boils down to, demand that at least one character be universally unlikeable. Asshole guy does have a back story for why he's an asshole, because his parents died and he's mad about it, but this ultimately leads to at least three people dying. He takes actions that are selfish and reckless, which by themselves are fine. But the movie hinges on him being an asshole in order to explain his dumb mistakes.
Recently, I've been watching through the Alien franchise in chronological order (I hate Prometheus and Covenant, by the way) and having watched Alien just the other day, I was so pleased to see there was no asshole character. Sure, the captain makes some no nonsense calls but he's stressed out and needs to be commanding. There were also two engineer guys who were a bit prickly but that's easily explained by them still being ages away from home and now forced to detour to a distress call. None of the Nostromo crew felt like an asshole just to be death fodder for later. So it, obviously, can be done but horror films repeatedly fall back on this trope and I hate it. It's okay to make your victims likeable, I promise. That's a weird sentence I'm putting out in the world but here we are.
Other than asshole guy, my other big complaint is some of the call backs the movie does. This is minor, but it took me out of the experience a touch. I didn't hate that they did it, but it felt unearned in some respects. That could just be me though.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie a ton. It could possibly be my favorite in the franchise, considering I don't have the nostalgia for Alien and I've not seen Aliens at the time of writing this. (But I have at the time of editing this. It was good. Not as good as Alien or Romulus, though). I highly recommend Romulus. It's one of the best horror films I've seen recently, others being a few less mainstream titles ("No One Makes It Out Alive", "Skinamarink" and "The Ritual". All 10/10s, by the way.) and anything Jordan Peele made. Go see this movie. It's so good. So good that it's a
9/10
Marvelous
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Score Breakdown:
10) Big Boi Lovings - A perfect score. Any negatives are insignificant.
9) Marvelous - A nearly flawless piece of media. A few gripes prevent it from being perfect.
8) Recommended - An excellent piece of media that should not be skipped, despite a few complaints.
7) P. Good - Above average. Some of the problems are a touch painful.
6) Hard Enjoy - Despite the issues that are present, I want to be a fan of the media - even though it hurts.
5) Aight - Average. The experience is overall hit or miss but does nothing to "wow" or warrant hate.
4) Inoffensive
- The media is not an enjoyable experience but also not a painful one.
3) Condemned - Enough problems are present that I regret consuming the media.
2) Poopie Bad Stuff - Terrible. I could hardly find any enjoyment, though it didn't cause an angry rant.
1) Dupid - I hate it. You probably know I hate it because I would not have been quiet about it.
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