‘Alien: Romulus’ (2024) & The Ripley Effect?
Female Derivatives of a Horror and Sci-Fi Icon in Recent TV Drama
There is a new addition to the Alien franchise arriving at cinemas in August. From what I have seen of the brief trailer for Alien: Romulus, it looks bloody terrifying again. The creative team behind the movie promised after the intergalactic journey taken by the story after Aliens in 1986 that they would return to the film’s thematic and aesthetic roots in horror.
From the briefest of visual clues, it looks highly promising and would be almost a relief after Ridley Scott’s diversion into epic prequels with Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. These were pure science fiction. The horror was nowhere to be seen or felt.
But now we are returning to the purity of the horror trope summed up by the phrase: ‘Things that go bump in the night’. When you are in darkness and the fear levels have risen by threat or the expectation of something nasty approaching or already ‘inside’ then anything will make you jump. The slightest sound or movement will — in a good horror film — get you jumping out of your skin. Or should that be bursting?
But although this is welcome news, the return to horror cannot work alone in Alien: Romulus without a return to the Ripley effect. Alien and any story wishing to…
