Alien: Romulus (2024)

“Get away from her, you… bitch.”

Before getting into this review, I must disclaim that I have only seen the original Alien, and only went because my sister begged me to take her and had nobody else to see it with; I figured I've seen worse horror movies and that I'd be doing a disservice to not take her, and it would also count towards my movies watched for this year; so I did — however, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into in promising that. 

First of all, I love Cailee Spaeny. I've seen her in more films than I'd realized, loved her portrayal of Priscilla Presley in A24's "Priscilla" and am looking forward to seeing her in yet another A24 flim, "Civil War." I know she has more upcoming films, so I'm really excited to see how she develops her career as an actress. I think that she did well in "Alien: Romulus" and really enjoyed seeing her from a totally different perspective than past films. 

As for the movie film itself, I found that it was actually quite easy to follow, despite not having seen any of the previous Alien installments aside from the original, while my sister has seen every single one of them, along with the Predator movies, fully being aware of all of the lore that encompasses this sci-fi, fantasy universe. I could tell what was going on and the overall concept of the movie, people get stuck in a space station, with a horrid creature roaming around on the prowl to kill, and the main protagonist must escape with her life. I don't think that it takes a genius or an Alien franchise nerd to understand that. 

That being said, there were some points where I wasn't entirely sure what was happening and had to lean over for clarification, and there were definitely some references that I missed due to not seeing past installments. For that reason, I don't think that I could fully enjoy it, but I still found it entertaining, so gave it an average rating. 

The film kept me on-edge the entirety of the movie, I felt myself scared in a thriller-type way, and was absolutely horrified at the final act, in which some of the scare scenes really got me despite making it through the majority of the runtime without having to watch through my hands or being too jumpy. I learned through research and fun facts that the final creature was actually made with mostly practical effects and some CGI-enhancements, which is really interesting to me and probably why it really terrified me compared to typical CGI "magic." 

As I said previously, I'm not an Alien franchise fan, so I don't think that I would have missed out by not seeing "Alien: Romulus," but don't think I wasted my time sitting down to see it either, especially when I got to spend time with my sister who really wanted to see it and really enjoyed it, as someone that is a fan of the franchise. If she thought it was good, with how hyper-fixated and picky as she is, then I'll take her word for it. For me, it was entertaining, frightening, and anxiety-inducing, which is what I went in hoping for and exactly what I got.