With Alien: Romulus, director Fede Álvarez (Don’t Breathe) takes inspiration from the 2014 videogame Alien: Isolation, setting his story in the years between Alien and Aliens, the first two and — arguably — the only good films in the long-running franchise. As opposed to the plethora of legacy sequels and reboots we’ve seen over the last decade, how does one make a direct continuation of a 45-year-old film?

Read on to find out!

A horror classic

In 1979, director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Blade Runner) unleashed Alien on the world, under the tagline, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” The film was an unexpected blockbuster, introducing H.R. Geiger’s provocative biomechanical creature design to the pop culture zeitgeist and making a star of Sigourney Weaver (Ghostbusters, Avatar) as the iconic Ripley. Now recognized as a classic, the only thing sullying Alien’s legacy is its own sequels, spinoffs, and prequels.

Indeed, aside from a superlative James Cameron follow-up in 1986’s Aliens (for which Weaver received a Best Actress Oscar nom!), nearly all the subsequent films were inferior, diminishing the creature’s ability to scare or shock by association. Even Scott’s return to the director’s chair for a pair of (much-maligned) prequels did little to restore the series’ luster.

The story

When four young colonists board an abandoned vessel to salvage much-needed equipment, they find themselves trapped with the galaxy’s deadliest species.

Back to basics

Almost immediately, Álvarez adopts a back-to-basics approach, using familiar imagery, dialogue, and iconography to get newcomers up to speed, while letting older fans know they’re in good hands.

The first half of Alien: Romulus features numerous references to previous entries, from the wreckage of the Nostromo (Alien, 1979), and badass weaponry (Aliens, 1986), to peons toiling under a faceless corporation (Alien3, 1992). Even having Cailee Spaeny’s (Pacific Rim: Uprising) determined Rain as the film’s lead recalls Weaver’s Ripley, and that’s before you get to the innumerable production Easter eggs, props, and verbatims scattered throughout.

Flipping the script

Thankfully, Álvarez is smart enough to not rely on Easter eggs alone, and when the infamous facehuggers finally appear, he ditches the pseudo-remake approach and flexes his horror genre cred. The initial hour’s familiar beats are instantly forgiven, as the filmmaker ramps up the tension and suspense in a series of increasingly demented sequences.

Given that Álvarez grew up on the original films, Romulus is a literal fanboy’s dream, leveraging existing lore and building on it to create some truly terrifying (and iconic) scenarios. It’s gritty, visceral, and shocking in ways that feel altogether new – no mean feat, considering that most audiences already have a cursory familiarity with these creatures.

It remixes the familiar

Similar to how Cameron followed up the 1979 original with a Vietnam war allegory to avoid covering the same ground, Álvarez takes Scott’s legendary haunted house in space concept and turns it into a full-on slasher movie, replete with all the attractive young people, hormones, and questionable decision making that implies. These are teenagers, and as the creature(s) begin to stalk and pick them off, their fear and desperation hit the viewer in an entirely different way from the cynical cargo haulers or battle-hardened colonial marines we’ve seen before.

The kids aren’t all right

A large part of this stems from the characters being just plain unlikeable, a fact exacerbated by Romulus’ first hour sporting a clear, “been there, done that” vibe. While the 1979 original took a slow burn to introduce its premise, it did so in a way that made us care about the characters and their world. In Romulus, everyone is so thinly fleshed out and unlikable, it works in the audience’s favor when the monsters start unaliving them. The emotional disconnect serves as de facto permission to truly appreciate the nightmarish delights of Álvarez’s elaborate set pieces as, for the first time since 1986, the titular creature is actually scary again.

Nightmare fuel

Romulus’ brilliantly stressful second act leads to a narrative swing in the third that directly ties the original films in with their much-maligned prequels, with nightmare fuel to spare. This was a genuine surprise, as the announcement of Rolumus’ setting led many to believe that Disney (after purchasing original studio 20^th Century Fox) was abandoning the origin stories laid out in Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017). While one doesn’t need any prior knowledge going into this one, the notion that Romulus goes full Clone Wars in addressing the prequels’ narrative gaps is a touch longtime fans will certainly appreciate.

The bottom line

With Alien Romulus, director Fede Álvarez single-handedly revives a once-flailing franchise by going back to what worked, and jettisoning what didn’t, while placing his own distinct stamp on the material. Though his adherence to what came before — particularly the 1979 original — can be distracting at times, it’s more than made up for by the filmmaker’s clear understanding of this universe and its lore. Romulus may not entirely absolve this series’ shoddier entries, but it goes a long way towards reconciling those films’ shortcomings by delivering a supremely disturbing experience in an established universe that will keep you up for days.