It is at the top of the food chain and will use its instincts to maintain that position. It is not evil or emotional, it just is, says writer Gabrielle de Bourg, who lectures on popular culture.
She means that the first "Alien" has influenced almost all science fiction horror since then.
Workers in space are sent on a rescue mission but become "pregnant" with an extraterrestrial parasite that explodes out of the chest of its host animal. Few creatures have captured the fear of the unknown as the iconic xenomorph. Woven from artist H R Giger's nightmares (he won an Oscar for his design in 1980), the monster in adult form resembles an uncooked crab, with an enormous phallic head without eyes, sharp tentacles, and corrosive acid for blood.
There is something sexual about an "alien's" body. It is both muscular and majestic. If you look at other monsters, they are often disgusting and hunchbacked. The xenomorph is really a work of art, and the biomechanical makes it even more exciting, says Gabrielle de Bourg.
Freudian Horror
"Alien" drew inspiration from horror writer H P Lovecraft. Both the xenomorph's indifference to human life and its being ancient, like the creatures discovered by geologists in Lovecraft's short novel "The Mountains of Madness" (1936).
Tytti Soila is a professor of film studies at Stockholm University and thinks it will be interesting to see the "sibling dynamics" in the new film "Alien: Romulus", where a crew from the younger generation gets to meet the monster.
Soila notes that Freudian themes are common in "Alien" films.
Freud has written about the return of the repressed. What one is ashamed of and afraid of within oneself always surfaces, and in the same way, this monster always comes back.
"Uncontrollable Primordial Force"
Billy Rimgard from the popular culture podcast Obiter Dictum has named his daughter after the character Ellen Ripley, as a tribute to sound values (in "Aliens", Ripley goes against the company line and advocates for nuclear bombing an xenomorph-invaded colony from space).
According to Rimgard, the horror in "Alien" is relevant again in 2024.
Beings that we cannot control and that are better than us create a sense of helplessness. In a time when we can control more than ever – our Instagram feed, the temperature in our refrigerator – then the uncontrollable primordial force becomes even scarier, he says.
Director: Fede Alvarez
Premiere date: August 14, 2024
Cast: Isabela Merced, Cailee Spaeny, Archie Renaux, and others
Plot: "Alien: Romulus" (the seventh in order, if you don't count the "Alien vs Predator" films) takes place between the first "Alien" (1979) and the sequel "Aliens" (1986) and is supposed to return to the atmosphere of the first film. But this time with a young crew.
Next year, the prequel series "Alien: Earth" will also be released.
