Why ‘Romulus’ is a good first ‘Alien’ for the franchise rookies

Older generations of film fans were raised on the “Alien” movies, first in the theater and later via VHS and DVD. The kids and young adults of today? Outside of a Xenomorph dancing on TikTok, they might have no reference for the sci-fi horror franchise.
Those are the moviegoers that 46-year-old co-writer/director Fede Alvarez says he “always” kept in mind when making the latest installment, “Alien: Romulus” (in theaters Friday). “I want to make sure that there’s no moment where the young audience goes: ‘OK, I’m lost. I don’t understand what you’re doing.’ ”
With a cast of rising Hollywood stars including Cailee Spaeny (“Civil War”), David Jonsson (“Rye Lane”) and Isabela Merced (“Turtles All the Way Down”), “Romulus” introduces a crew of 20-something explorers wanting to leave their mining colony who plunder a decommissioned space station and run afoul of Facehuggers, Chestbursters and, of course, Xenomorphs. Alvarez promises there’s no required viewing, but the film definitely pays homage to the suffocating terror of Ridley Scott’s 1979 “Alien” and action-ready nature of James Cameron’s 1986 sequel “Aliens.”
Join our Watch Party!Sign up to receive USA TODAY’s movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox
Alvarez didn’t have that “generational thing” in mind when he updated another horror classic for modern eyes with 2013’s gore-filled reboot of “Evil Dead.”
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
“Although it was a rated-R film, there was going to be a lot of 12-year-olds who were going to watch it just like I watched the original ‘Evil Dead’ when I was 12,” Alvarez says. It found a fandom, and now those kids are in their 20s: The filmmaker recently spotted an epic full-chest “Evil Dead” tattoo online, showcasing a blood-soaked Jane Levy wielding a chainsaw. “It really made an impact on them,” he says.
Now, he realizes some people’s first “Alien” movie will be “Romulus.” Last month at the pop culture conference Comic-Con, Alvarez told a story about auditioning a young actor who had just seen the “original” two “Alien” flicks. And for this particular guy, that meant 2012’s “Prometheus” and 2017’s “Alien: Covenant” prequels. (“It was like, ‘OK, you’re not getting the role,’ ” the director quipped.)
Chatting with actors in their 20s, Alvarez sometimes finds the younger generation hasn’t been exposed to as much pop culture as he was. He’ll mention a favorite band or a movie and they have no idea what he’s talking about. “What do you want to do when someone says that? You wish you could transmit to them all those emotions that that thing put you through,” Alvarez says.
But even when playing an old sci-fi film or a Led Zeppelin album for a newbie, he’s found they might not get why it’s cool. So with “Romulus,” Alvarez’s primary aim was using the filmmaking techniques, animatronics and visual effects of today to “inflict on them the emotions that those movies did on us,” he says. “That’s truly the exercise: Hey, let me make one and put you through an experience that hopefully will bring you close to what I felt watching that original film.”
Growing up in Uruguay, Alvarez first saw “Aliens” on VHS and found it to be an “evil twin” to “Star Wars.” “People in space and guns? Let’s go. And then suddenly the level of horror that comes at you is so violent and insane,” he says. “That is the trauma: You thought you were watching some fun ‘Star Wars’ adventure, and then it becomes very adult and very dark and very scary. And as a kid, you’re always fascinated with that.”
When he finally got around to the first “Alien,” Alvarez was drawn in by the claustrophobic environment of being stuck in a spaceship with an extraterrestrial creature on the hunt. 
“We all worry about dying in general, but dying alone is the worst part,” Alvarez says. “That’s why in horror, you tend to isolate the characters. You put them in the cabin in the woods because to be running around in the woods on your own, it’s terrifying. Maybe the sheriff will suddenly respond or maybe if you scream loud enough, someone will show up. In space, no one will ever show up.”
Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley was an iconic take on the “final girl” trope in those early “Alien” films, which is why Alvarez crafted a narrative where Spaeny and Merced play huge roles as “Romulus” unfolds. “As an audience, that young female character is the most precious thing. Even if we’re all dead, you want her to survive,” he says. But the filmmaker points out one thing in the 1979 “Alien” that probably wouldn’t fly now: You know “absolutely zero” about the crew members killed one by one in Scott’s “Texas Chain Saw Massacre”-in-space take.
Because modern films and horror kids understand “the power of a good character,” Alvarez spends the first 40 minutes of “Romulus” fleshing out the young protagonists before a Facehugger even shows up.
“You need to understand what they want in life, and that makes them real,” the filmmaker says. “Maybe in a perverse way, I want you to connect with them so when potentially they might die, it has more effect on you. That’s my goal making this film: It has to damage the audience emotionally.”